Top Individual Personal Injury Verdicts and Settlements of 2012
The 20 largest individual personal injury results from 2012, nationwide on record here, ranked by amount: one client's, one family's, or one incident's recovery, never a pooled fund. Each links to the full story, the firm, and the record behind the number.
- $200 millionVerdictNot collectable
$200 Million Verdict for a 92-Year-Old Who Died Strapped in Her Wheelchair at the Bottom of a Nursing Home Stairwell, Returned Against a Defunct Company That Never Showed Up or Paid
A Pinellas County jury awarded $60 million in compensatory and $140 million in punitive damages over the death of 92-year-old Elvira Nunziata, who tumbled down a stairwell still strapped in her wheelchair at the Pinellas Park Care and Rehab Center, in a Wilkes & McHugh case where the defunct operator Trans Health Management presented no defense at all, meaning the record-setting sum was symbolic from the start; the estate later recovered only a share of a modest multi-estate bankruptcy settlement.
After trial: Unopposed verdict against a dissolved company; never paid. The estate shared the $23.7M six-estate bankruptcy settlement.
Wilkes & Associates, P.A.2012 · Sixth Judicial Circuit, Pinellas County, FloridaRead the full story → - $120 millionVerdict
$120 Million Verdict for Woman Left Brain-Damaged After Three NYC Hospitals Missed Her Stevens-Johnson Syndrome
A Bronx jury awarded $120 million to Jacqueline Martin, a 45-year-old mother who suffered permanent brain damage after three New York City hospitals repeatedly failed to recognize and treat a severe allergic reaction to seizure medication that triggered Stevens-Johnson Syndrome.
After trial: The hospital corporation announced an appeal; no final public outcome is on record.
- $109 millionVerdictReduced after trialPaid
West Penn Power Faces a $109 Million Verdict in a Fatal Backyard Electrocution
An Allegheny County jury found West Penn Power negligent for the splice failure that dropped a live 7,200-volt line on Carrie Goretzka in her own backyard. The 2012 verdict reached $109 million. The utility later paid a reported $105 million to drop its appeal.
After trial: West Penn Power dropped its appeal of the $109 million verdict in February 2013 and agreed to pay $105 million instead, ending the case without a court ruling on the appeal.
- $108.6 millionVerdict
$108.6 Million Wrongful-Death Verdict in Fatal Home Birth Tied to Faith-Healing Group
A Jackson County jury returned a $108.6 million verdict for the parents of a woman who died from sepsis after her husband's religious group prevented her from receiving medical care during a botched home birth.
After trial: The Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District, affirmed the full $108.6 million verdict in 2014, upholding both the $8.65 million compensatory award and the $100 million punitive award. The defendants, Caleb Horner, John Horner, and Amber Horner Leathers, are individuals who represented themselves at trial and on appeal, so collectability of the judgment is doubtful.
Humphrey, Farrington & McClain2012 · Jackson County Circuit Court, Lee's Summit, MORead the full story → - $85 millionVerdict
$85 Million Verdict for Oregon National Guard Soldiers Poisoned by KBR in Iraq
A federal jury in Portland awarded $85 million to 12 Oregon Army National Guard soldiers after finding that contractor KBR knowingly exposed them to a carcinogenic chemical at an Iraqi water treatment plant and then lied about the danger.
- $74.5 millionVerdict
$74.5 Million for a Girl Born with Cerebral Palsy After Her OB Ignored Hours of Warning Signs at Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center
A San Luis Obispo jury awarded $74.5 million to the family of a girl who was born with cerebral palsy in April 2009 after her obstetrician failed to respond to deteriorating fetal heart-rate tracings and did not order emergency delivery at Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center.
- $64 millionVerdict
$64 Million Verdict for Ironworker Left Quadriplegic After 15-Foot Fall at Panduit Warehouse
A Cook County jury awarded $64 million to Ronald Bayer, a union ironworker paralyzed from the neck down after falling 15 feet at a Panduit Corp. warehouse construction site in DeKalb, Illinois -- at the time the largest verdict ever returned for a quadriplegic in Illinois.
- $24 millionVerdict
Corpus Christi Jury Awards $24 Million After Coca-Cola Driver on Hands-Free Call Blindsided a Woman at Downtown Intersection
A Nueces County jury awarded Vanice Chatman-Wilson $24 million, including $10 million in punitive damages, after a Coca-Cola employee on a hands-free business call turned left into oncoming traffic and crushed Chatman-Wilson's car at a downtown Corpus Christi intersection.
- $23.94 millionVerdictReduced from $42 million
Copilot Burned in Fatal Wildfire Helicopter Crash Wins Verdict Against Engine Maker
William Coultas, the copilot who survived a 2008 helicopter crash that killed nine people on the Iron Complex fire in Northern California, sued General Electric over the engine's fuel control unit after suffering severe burns. A Multnomah County jury in Portland found GE 57 percent at fault on March 27, 2012 and awarded $42,000,000 to Coultas and his wife as part of a $70,455,000 verdict that also compensated the pilot's estate. Because Oregon makes defendants severally liable for their own share of fault, the couple's judgment was entered at $23,940,000. GE said it would appeal, and court records show the judgment was still on appeal in August 2013. A later federal opinion states the plaintiffs ultimately settled with all of the defendants.
After trial: General Electric said after the March 2012 verdict that it would appeal, arguing the result contradicted the National Transportation Safety Board's finding that the helicopter was overloaded. A Massachusetts Superior Court opinion in the families' suit against their workers' compensation insurer, Coultas v.
- $23 millionVerdict
$23 Million Verdict Against LAUSD and Teacher Who Molested a Fifth-Grade Boy at Queen Anne Elementary
A Los Angeles jury awarded $23 million in December 2012 after finding that LAUSD ignored repeated warning signs while a fifth-grade teacher molested a ten-year-old student dozens of times over the course of a school year.
- $20.6 millionVerdict
Jury Awards $21 Million After Delayed C-Section Left Premature Infant with Cerebral Palsy at Baltimore Hospital
A Baltimore City jury returned a $21 million verdict against MedStar Harbor Hospital after physicians failed to perform a timely emergency cesarean section during a premature delivery, causing a newborn to suffer oxygen deprivation and permanent spastic diplegic cerebral palsy.
- $18.5 millionSettlement
Movie Extra Wins $18.5 Million After Stunt Cable Shatters Skull on Transformers 3 Set
A Cook County judge approved an $18.5 million settlement for Gabriela Cedillo, a 24-year-old extra who suffered catastrophic brain damage when a snapped tow cable tore through her windshield during filming of Transformers: Dark of the Moon in Hammond, Indiana.
- $17.34 million
Paralyzed Forklift Operator's $17.34 Million Warehouse Racking Judgment Survives Appeal
Leroy Rice, a forklift operator, was left permanently paralyzed on September 18, 2001, when a storage racking system at his Philadelphia warehouse job collapsed and dropped roughly a ton of frozen food on him. A Philadelphia jury awarded him $12,400,000 at a second trial in 2010, after the Superior Court reversed the first trial's judgment and ordered a new trial on damages, and the trial court molded that verdict to $17,339,797.30 to add delay damages. The Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed the judgment against racking manufacturer Interlake Material Handling Inc. on February 22, 2012, according to contemporaneous legal-press coverage. Thomas J. Duffy Jr. is named in the trial court's opinion as counsel for Rice.
After trial: The ranked figure is the molded second-trial judgment of $17,339,797.30, which includes delay damages. It followed a first trial verdict of $10.6 million, molded to about $12.3 million, that the Superior Court reversed on June 26, 2009 with a remand for a new trial on damages.
The Duffy Firm2012 · Pennsylvania Superior Court, on appeal from Philadelphia County Court of Common PleasRead the full story → - $16 millionSettlementPaid
Runaway Railcar Costs Georgia Plant Worker Both Legs, CSX Settlement Reaches $16 Million
Douglas Burchfield, a General Mills employee at the company's cereal plant in Covington, Georgia, suffered the partial amputation of both legs when a loaded railcar rolled loose and ran him over during a routine railcar switch in June 2005. He sued CSX Transportation, which had delivered the car, arguing it put the car into service with a defective handbrake. A first jury cleared CSX, but the 11th Circuit reversed after finding the trial court had improperly let CSX show the jury a reenactment video, and a retrial jury found Burchfield zero percent negligent, CSX 100 percent negligent, and awarded him $20,559,004. CSX appealed, and while that appeal was pending the parties settled the claim for $16 million, which CSX paid.
After trial: CSX appealed the retrial judgment to the 11th Circuit. While that appeal was pending, the parties settled for $16 million and CSX paid it, so the retrial verdict itself was never reviewed on appeal.
Warshauer Woodward Atkins, LLC2012 · U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta DivisionRead the full story → - $15.4 millionSettlement
State Pays $15.4 Million After Trail Sign Channeled Two Visitors Off a 300-Foot Cliff
A Kauai judge found Hawaii totally at fault after a state-posted warning sign at the left trail entrance near Opaeka'a Falls left the right-hand path -- which ended at a sheer 300-foot cliff -- completely unmarked, sending two visiting women to their deaths.
- $11.8 millionVerdict
Corner Iron Off Lion Raisins Truck Pierces Schoolteacher's Brain: $11.8 Million Fresno Verdict
A corner iron that broke loose from a Lion Raisins semi-trailer on Highway 99 shot through Susan Reyes' windshield and into her brain, leaving the Fresno schoolteacher with catastrophic, permanent injuries; Richard Watters secured a jury verdict of $11,876,655.82.
- $11 millionVerdictReduced from $20 millionPaid
A Surgeon Operated on the Wrong Side of a Boy's Brain, and Nobody Told His Parents for More Than a Year. A Pulaski County Jury Took Two Hours to Award $20 Million.
A 15-year-old boy went into Arkansas Children's Hospital for surgery to remove the brain tissue causing his seizures. The surgeon opened the wrong side of his head and removed healthy tissue before turning to the correct side. His parents were not told, and learned of it more than a year later during an unrelated examination.
After trial: Final and affirmed. The jury returned $20,000,000 on September 24, 2010.
Davis, Bethune & Jones, L.L.C.2012 · Pulaski County Circuit Court, AR (affirmed, Arkansas Supreme Court)Read the full story → - $7.5 millionSettlement
$7.5 Million Settlement for Family of Electrician Killed in Norfolk Propane Explosion
Marc Breakstone secured a $7.5 million wrongful death settlement for the family of William 'Billy' Nichols, a 46-year-old electrician killed in a July 2010 propane explosion at a Norfolk condominium construction site, after proving that a propane distributor's deliberate under-filling of a new tank caused the safety odorant to dissipate, leaving a deadly gas leak completely undetectable.
- $7.35 millionVerdictPaid
Middlesex County Jury Awards $7.35 Million to the Family of a Jersey City Laborer Paralyzed by a Falling Ladder and Left Brain-Damaged by Delayed Intubation
Jack D'Avila, a concrete laborer on a scrap-metal shredder installation in Jersey City, was struck on the head by an unsecured 20-foot extension ladder on May 18, 2005, fractured his cervical spine, and two days later suffered an anoxic brain injury when his ICU surgeon did not intubate him before he went into respiratory distress. He spent three years on a ventilator and died in July 2008. After a four-month trial in Middlesex County, a jury found the site owner Hugo Neu, the installer Femco Machine Company, and trauma surgeon Patricia Schrader liable and awarded his estate, widow, and two children $7,346,363, entered as an $8.54 million judgment with interest. The Appellate Division affirmed the verdict and judgment in a published 2015 opinion, remanding only indemnification questions among the defendants.
After trial: The Appellate Division affirmed the verdict and judgment on August 10, 2015 (442 N.J. Super.
Blume Forte Fried Zerres & Molinari, P.C.2012 · Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Middlesex County, New BrunswickRead the full story → - $6.5 millionSettlement
$6.5 Million Settlement for Students Injured in Fatal I-84 School Bus Crash
RisCassi and Davis attorneys secured a $6.5 million settlement for students hurt when a school bus plunged down a 20-foot I-84 embankment, killing a 16-year-old Rocky Hill boy on his way to a robotics competition.
RisCassi & Davis2012 · Connecticut Superior Court (mediation before Judge Jonathan Silbert)Read the full story →
All 2012 verdicts and settlements
36 results, largest first
Appointed by the court as Plaintiffs Liaison Counsel and Co-Lead Class Counsel, Stephen Herman of Herman Herman and Katz helped negotiate a $7.8 billion economic and property-damage class settlement with BP covering more than 100,000 Gulf Coast businesses and individuals harmed by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
A Pinellas County jury awarded $60 million in compensatory and $140 million in punitive damages over the death of 92-year-old Elvira Nunziata, who tumbled down a stairwell still strapped in her wheelchair at the Pinellas Park Care and Rehab Center, in a Wilkes & McHugh case where the defunct operator Trans Health Management presented no defense at all, meaning the record-setting sum was symbolic from the start; the estate later recovered only a share of a modest multi-estate bankruptcy settlement.
Schochor, Federico and Staton, P.A. represented the largest single group of plaintiffs in a $123 million class-action settlement against Beebe Medical Center for institutional failures that allowed pediatrician Earl Bradley to abuse hundreds of children over 15 years.
A Bronx jury awarded $120 million to Jacqueline Martin, a 45-year-old mother who suffered permanent brain damage after three New York City hospitals repeatedly failed to recognize and treat a severe allergic reaction to seizure medication that triggered Stevens-Johnson Syndrome.
An Allegheny County jury found West Penn Power negligent for the splice failure that dropped a live 7,200-volt line on Carrie Goretzka in her own backyard. The 2012 verdict reached $109 million. The utility later paid a reported $105 million to drop its appeal.
A Jackson County jury returned a $108.6 million verdict for the parents of a woman who died from sepsis after her husband's religious group prevented her from receiving medical care during a botched home birth.
A federal jury in Portland awarded $85 million to 12 Oregon Army National Guard soldiers after finding that contractor KBR knowingly exposed them to a carcinogenic chemical at an Iraqi water treatment plant and then lied about the danger.
A San Luis Obispo jury awarded $74.5 million to the family of a girl who was born with cerebral palsy in April 2009 after her obstetrician failed to respond to deteriorating fetal heart-rate tracings and did not order emergency delivery at Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center.
A Cook County jury awarded $64 million to Ronald Bayer, a union ironworker paralyzed from the neck down after falling 15 feet at a Panduit Corp. warehouse construction site in DeKalb, Illinois -- at the time the largest verdict ever returned for a quadriplegic in Illinois.
A federal jury in Montgomery awarded $64.1 million to Lucky Palace LLC and 15 Macon County charities after finding VictoryLand owner Milton McGregor conspired to freeze out a competing electronic bingo operation.
Maurice Graham of Gray, Ritter and Graham secured a $55 million class action settlement in Doyle v. Fluor for Herculaneum, Missouri homeowners whose properties were contaminated by lead emissions from the Doe Run smelter.
A Baltimore City jury awarded $55 million after Johns Hopkins Hospital delayed an emergency cesarean section for more than two hours following a home-birth transfer, leaving infant Enzo Martinez with permanent cerebral palsy and profound neurological injuries.
After the U.S. Supreme Court's 2009 Wyeth v. Levine decision cleared the way for pharmaceutical failure-to-warn suits, Tim Misny assembled a second large block of Ohio plaintiffs harmed by a drug whose labeling omitted warnings about increased cancer risk, and secured a $50 million settlement in October 2012 as co-counsel in the related coordinated litigation.
A Nueces County jury awarded Vanice Chatman-Wilson $24 million, including $10 million in punitive damages, after a Coca-Cola employee on a hands-free business call turned left into oncoming traffic and crushed Chatman-Wilson's car at a downtown Corpus Christi intersection.
William Coultas, the copilot who survived a 2008 helicopter crash that killed nine people on the Iron Complex fire in Northern California, sued General Electric over the engine's fuel control unit after suffering severe burns. A Multnomah County jury in Portland found GE 57 percent at fault on March 27, 2012 and awarded $42,000,000 to Coultas and his wife as part of a $70,455,000 verdict that also compensated the pilot's estate. Because Oregon makes defendants severally liable for their own share of fault, the couple's judgment was entered at $23,940,000. GE said it would appeal, and court records show the judgment was still on appeal in August 2013. A later federal opinion states the plaintiffs ultimately settled with all of the defendants.
A Los Angeles jury awarded $23 million in December 2012 after finding that LAUSD ignored repeated warning signs while a fifth-grade teacher molested a ten-year-old student dozens of times over the course of a school year.
A Baltimore City jury returned a $21 million verdict against MedStar Harbor Hospital after physicians failed to perform a timely emergency cesarean section during a premature delivery, causing a newborn to suffer oxygen deprivation and permanent spastic diplegic cerebral palsy.
A Cook County judge approved an $18.5 million settlement for Gabriela Cedillo, a 24-year-old extra who suffered catastrophic brain damage when a snapped tow cable tore through her windshield during filming of Transformers: Dark of the Moon in Hammond, Indiana.
Leroy Rice, a forklift operator, was left permanently paralyzed on September 18, 2001, when a storage racking system at his Philadelphia warehouse job collapsed and dropped roughly a ton of frozen food on him. A Philadelphia jury awarded him $12,400,000 at a second trial in 2010, after the Superior Court reversed the first trial's judgment and ordered a new trial on damages, and the trial court molded that verdict to $17,339,797.30 to add delay damages. The Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed the judgment against racking manufacturer Interlake Material Handling Inc. on February 22, 2012, according to contemporaneous legal-press coverage. Thomas J. Duffy Jr. is named in the trial court's opinion as counsel for Rice.
Douglas Burchfield, a General Mills employee at the company's cereal plant in Covington, Georgia, suffered the partial amputation of both legs when a loaded railcar rolled loose and ran him over during a routine railcar switch in June 2005. He sued CSX Transportation, which had delivered the car, arguing it put the car into service with a defective handbrake. A first jury cleared CSX, but the 11th Circuit reversed after finding the trial court had improperly let CSX show the jury a reenactment video, and a retrial jury found Burchfield zero percent negligent, CSX 100 percent negligent, and awarded him $20,559,004. CSX appealed, and while that appeal was pending the parties settled the claim for $16 million, which CSX paid.
A Kauai judge found Hawaii totally at fault after a state-posted warning sign at the left trail entrance near Opaeka'a Falls left the right-hand path -- which ended at a sheer 300-foot cliff -- completely unmarked, sending two visiting women to their deaths.
A corner iron that broke loose from a Lion Raisins semi-trailer on Highway 99 shot through Susan Reyes' windshield and into her brain, leaving the Fresno schoolteacher with catastrophic, permanent injuries; Richard Watters secured a jury verdict of $11,876,655.82.
A 15-year-old boy went into Arkansas Children's Hospital for surgery to remove the brain tissue causing his seizures. The surgeon opened the wrong side of his head and removed healthy tissue before turning to the correct side. His parents were not told, and learned of it more than a year later during an unrelated examination.
Marc Breakstone secured a $7.5 million wrongful death settlement for the family of William 'Billy' Nichols, a 46-year-old electrician killed in a July 2010 propane explosion at a Norfolk condominium construction site, after proving that a propane distributor's deliberate under-filling of a new tank caused the safety odorant to dissipate, leaving a deadly gas leak completely undetectable.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.