Largest Personal Injury Settlements of 1997

C. Steven Yerrid, the youngest of Florida's 11-lawyer 'Dream Team,' added racketeering and conspiracy charges that tripled the damages ceiling, helping the state secure what was then the largest civil settlement in American history against the tobacco industry.

Joseph Bruno and Bruno & Bruno served as lead plaintiffs' counsel in a landmark class action brought by more than 8,000 Gentilly residents exposed to a butadiene tank-car fire in 1987, securing a jury verdict that included $2.5 billion in punitive damages against CSX Transportation alone, later reduced to $850 million on appeal and affirmed by Louisiana's Fourth Circuit.

A federal jury awarded $262.5 million after finding that a defective rear liftgate latch on a 1985 Dodge Caravan caused a six-year-old boy to be ejected and killed in a 1994 crash; the punitive damages were later reversed on appeal and the case settled confidentially in 2001.

After Cuban MiG fighters shot down two unarmed Brothers to the Rescue planes on February 24, 1996, killing four men, the families of three of the victims won a default judgment in Miami federal court. Judge James Lawrence King awarded $49.9 million in compensatory damages against Cuba and the Cuban Air Force and $137.7 million in punitive damages against the Air Force alone. The figure is a group result covering three families' separately itemized awards. The judgment stood, and about $93 million was later collected from frozen Cuban assets.

A Dallas jury returned a $119.6 million verdict against the Catholic Diocese of Dallas after finding it grossly negligent and fraudulent in concealing years of sexual abuse by priest Rudy Kos; eight of the eleven plaintiffs, represented by Windle Turley, later settled for $23.4 million.

Robert Clifford co-led the families of 68 people killed when American Eagle Flight 4184 iced over and crashed near Roselawn, Indiana, to a record $110 million settlement and an apology in open court.

Kevin Glasheen won a $60.5 million jury verdict in 1997, at the time the largest railroad accident verdict in Texas, after a Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight train killed a Friona family at a grade crossing in August 1993.

A Cook County jury awarded $10,944,000 in 1997 to a newborn girl left with extreme and permanent neurological damage after Lake Forest Hospital failed to provide any mechanism for getting a description of her placenta into her chart and had no policy for monitoring the blood pressure of stressed newborns, delaying treatment for blood she had lost before delivery. The trial court reduced the verdict to $9,644,000 to credit a prior $1,300,000 settlement with other defendants, then wiped out the award entirely by granting the hospital judgment notwithstanding the verdict and ordering a new trial. In June 2000, the Illinois Appellate Court reversed both rulings, reinstated the $9,644,000 judgment, and denied the hospital's conditional request to cut the award further. Terrence K. Hegarty, William J. Harte, Timothy W. Heath and Joan M. Nannix represented the family; Heath is now a named partner at Heath & Heath, P.C.

Jamie Lebovitz threatened to take Boeing to trial in the Flight 427 wrongful-death MDL and, on the scheduled trial date, accepted a settlement of approximately $7 million for his client's family, a figure reported as far above what most other victims' families received.

On September 9, 1990, James Ulm was riding as a passenger in a 1978 Ford Bronco on a dirt road above Wilmington, Vermont, when the driver lost steering control and the Bronco rolled, breaking Ulm's back and leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. Ulm sued Ford Motor Company, arguing the Bronco's steering system was defectively designed, and a Windham Superior Court jury returned a $1,250,000 verdict in his favor. After the trial court credited pretrial settlements and added prejudgment interest, the final judgment rose to $1,290,460.52. Ford appealed, and the Vermont Supreme Court affirmed the judgment in full, also rejecting a subrogation claim brought by Ulm's health plan.

Victor Bergman won a $1.215 million jury verdict for sprint car driver Doug Wolfgang, who suffered severe burns after track operators at Lakeside Speedway left him trapped in a burning cockpit for eight to ten minutes with only two undertrained firefighters on site.

A nine-year-old girl's sciatic nerve was injured during hip surgery at Crestwood Hospital in Huntsville, Alabama in 1990. Her parents sued the hospital's operator, alleging an inadequately trained operating room technician. A jury awarded $818,000 in compensatory damages against the hospital and found for the surgeon's practice. The Alabama Supreme Court affirmed on March 7, 1997.