About Dominic Pechota
Dominic is a seasoned trial lawyer who handles cases nationwide. With 21 years of civil trial practice, he serves as the managing partner of the firm’s Iowa and Minneapolis offices.
In 2025, Dominic obtained a $700,000 settlement for a client who sustained serious hand and facial injuries after tripping over a hazardous entryway at a rural Minnesota bar, despite a .217 BAC. In 2022, he secured two fully collectible excess-policy jury verdicts: a $962,500 verdict in Charles City, nearly four times State Farm’s policy limit, and a $457,476 verdict in Iowa City for a client with a healed, nonsurgical compression fracture, exceeding the top pre-trial offer by more than six times.
Also in 2022, Dominic and his partner, Nick Rowley, secured a $10 million settlement for the family of a migrant worker who died after being engulfed in soybeans at an Iowa grain facility that violated OSHA regulations. Previously, in 2016, Dominic and partner Rod Ritner obtained a $1.2 million verdict against Farm Bureau Property & Casualty, the largest civil injury verdict in Winneshiek County history. Over the past nine years, Dominic has secured more than $125 million in collected recoveries for personal injury and medical malpractice clients.
Dominic earned his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, receiving dual degrees in English and Political Science. He earned his Juris Doctor from the University of Iowa College of Law, where he completed a judicial externship with the Honorable Ronald E. Longstaff, former Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa. Dominic is admitted to practice in Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and South Dakota, and has been granted special admission in Arkansas, Missouri, West Virginia, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Illinois. He previously served on the Board of Governors for the Iowa Association of Justice.
Born in Martin, South Dakota, and raised in Rapid City, Dominic enjoys coaching youth basketball, golfing, and fishing in his spare time. He is an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Indian Tribe.
Proven verdicts and settlements
Carrie DeJongh, 40, of Hull, Iowa, died on June 9, 2015 after receiving iodinated contrast dye for a CT scan at Sioux Center Health, when the physician treating her gave her an antihistamine but did not immediately check her vital signs or give epinephrine. Her family sued Sioux Center Health and Dr. Roy T. Slice for negligence, and both defendants denied the allegations. A Sioux County jury in Orange City returned a $29.5 million verdict on June 13, 2018, covering DeJongh's pain and suffering before her death and loss of consortium for her husband and four children. No appeal, remittitur or reduction has turned up since.
Richard J. Pellock, 80, had surgery to remove bladder cancer at UnityPoint Health Finley Hospital in Dubuque, Iowa in January 2015, and the operation succeeded. Days later he needed a second procedure for a post-surgical complication, and the nurse anesthetist handling that procedure induced anesthesia without first emptying his stomach despite signs he had a full one. Pellock aspirated, developed aspiration pneumonia and respiratory failure, and died. His widow and son sued the anesthesia group and a Dubuque County jury returned a $10 million verdict against it in September 2017, awarded entirely as loss-of-consortium damages. Defense lawyers were reported as saying they would challenge the verdict, but no Iowa appellate decision in the case has ever been published.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
