Top Personal Injury Settlements of 2018
The largest personal injury settlements from 2018, nationwide for one client or family, ranked by amount. Each links to the full story, the firm, and the record behind the number.
- $160 millionSettlement
U-Haul Pays $160 Million After Overfilled Propane Tank Kills Food Truck Owner and Her Daughter
A $160 million settlement, the largest pre-verdict settlement in Pennsylvania court history, resolved claims against U-Haul after an overfilled propane tank exploded at a North Philadelphia food truck, killing a mother and her teenage daughter and severely burning three others.
After trial: The $160 million figure is a pre-trial settlement, not a jury verdict; U-Haul and the victims' families settled less than a week before trial was set to begin. The settlement was not confidential, and broke down as $69.17 million, $54.3 million, and $36.47 million to the estates involved.
Feldman Shepherd Wohlgelernter Tanner Weinstock Dodig2018 · Philadelphia Court of Common PleasRead the full story → - $65.75 millionSettlement
$65.75 Million Record Settlement for Attorney Brain-Injured When Seattle Ambulance Ran a Red Light
The City of Seattle and its five insurers paid $65.75 million to Brooke Taylor, a 38-year-old Susman Godfrey partner who suffered a catastrophic traumatic brain injury when a Seattle Fire Department aid unit went through a red light at Fourth Avenue and Seneca Street in April 2016 and struck her Porsche, spinning it into a signal box and a tree. Todd Gardner of Swanson Gardner Meyers negotiated the settlement, approved in King County Superior Court in late December 2018 and reported as the largest personal injury settlement in city history and likely the largest in Washington state.
- $54.35 millionSettlementPaid
Teenager Burned in Philadelphia Food Truck Explosion Settles With U-Haul for $54.35 Million
A propane tank ruptured aboard a Philadelphia food truck on July 1, 2014, killing the truck's owner and her 17-year-old daughter and burning a teenage girl who was helping in the business. Less than a week before the case was set for trial, U-Haul agreed in June 2018 to pay $160 million, plus an additional confidential amount, to resolve the claims of all four victims, with $54.35 million allocated to the girl, identified in press accounts only as Jane Doe because she was still a minor. Plaintiffs' lawyers said her share was the largest settlement ever paid to a minor in Pennsylvania state court history. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that she was represented by lawyers including Thomas J. Duffy. Because she was a minor, the agreement had to be approved by a judge in the Orphans' Court division of the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas.
After trial: Settlement reached before trial and not appealed: As Jane Doe was a minor, it required approval from a Philadelphia Orphans' Court judge. U-Haul said it worked with its insurance carriers to fund the settlement and that all injured parties had been compensated.
The Duffy Firm2018 · Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas, Orphans' Court Division, PennsylvaniaRead the full story → - $47.5 millionSettlement
$47.5 Million Settlement for Boy Crushed by Rotten Tanoak at San Mateo County Campground
A 12-year-old's catastrophic injuries from a rotten campground tree produced a $47.5 million pretrial settlement against San Mateo County, PG&E, and their contractors, reportedly the largest single-plaintiff personal injury settlement in California history.
- $40 millionSettlement
$40 Million Settlement for Child Brain-Injured During PICC-Line Procedure at Highland Park Hospital
A 12-year-old girl suffered permanent, catastrophic brain damage after cardiac arrest during a PICC-line procedure at Highland Park Hospital, and Power Rogers secured a $40 million settlement that the Jury Verdict Reporter identified as the largest-ever Cook County recovery for a brain-injured minor.
- $28 millionSettlement
$28 Million Settlement for Teenager Left Quadriplegic After WSDOT Failed to Install Funded Highway Barrier
Washington state paid $28 million to a young woman left quadriplegic after her car struck an unguarded overpass pillar on I-5 near DuPont, where WSDOT had funding and a plan to install a protective barrier but never completed the work.
- $27.5 millionSettlement
Record $27.5 Million From the Diocese of Brooklyn for Four Boys a Church Failed to Protect
Gair Gair Conason secured a $27.5 million settlement from the Diocese of Brooklyn for four boys abused by a parish religion teacher, reported as the largest individual Catholic Church sexual-abuse payout on record at the time.
Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf2018 · Kings County (Brooklyn), NYRead the full story → - $21.1 millionSettlement
$21.1 Million Settlement for a Woman Who Lost All Four Limbs After a Shingles Misdiagnosis
In 2011 Mardi Strong, a construction worker and a member of the Yakama Nation, went to the Alaska Native Medical Center's emergency room and family clinic three separate times with worsening cellulitis and early sepsis. Staff diagnosed shingles each time and sent her home. She returned in septic shock, dry gangrene set in, and all four of her limbs were amputated. Her Federal Tort Claims Act case was tried in March 2018 and settled for $21,100,000 while the parties waited for the judge's decision.
After trial: Settlement with the United States reached in October 2018, after a March 2018 bench trial and before the court ruled. It is final as agreed and no cap was applied.
Atkinson, Conway & Gagnon, Inc.2018 · U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska, AnchorageRead the full story → - $11.75 millionSettlement
$11.75 Million Settlement for Family of Cyclist Killed by Distracted Sheriff's Deputy in Calabasas
Milton Olin Jr., a 65-year-old attorney and former Napster executive, was killed on Dec. 8, 2013 when a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy typing on his patrol car's computer drifted into a Calabasas bike lane. In May 2018 the county's Board of Supervisors unanimously approved an $11.75 million settlement of the family's wrongful death lawsuit, days before a civil trial was to begin.
- $11.4 millionSettlement
$11.4 Million Settlement for Pedestrian Left Quadriplegic at Defective Waipio Uka Crosswalk
A 38-year-old man paralyzed at a Waipio crosswalk in April 2015 settled for $11.4 million after attorney Woodruff Soldner proved the City of Honolulu repaved the road in 2014 without completing the safety checklist its own laws required.
- $10 millionSettlementPaid
Family of Man Killed by Drunk Off-Duty Detective Settles With Chicago for $10 Million
Early on April 10, 2009, off-duty Chicago police detective Joseph Frugoli, driving with a blood alcohol level about three times the legal limit, slammed his SUV into a car stopped on the shoulder of the Dan Ryan Expressway with a flat tire. The car caught fire and both occupants, 23-year-old Andrew Cazares and 21-year-old Fausto Manzera, were killed. The families sued Frugoli and the City of Chicago, arguing a departmental 'code of silence' had let Frugoli drink and drive for years without discipline. The city settled in December 2017 during closing arguments, and the Chicago City Council approved the payout on February 28, 2018: $20 million total, split evenly between the two families. Timothy Cavanagh and Michael Sorich were attorneys of record for the Cazares side, which took $10 million; Kevin Conway of Cooney & Conway represented the Manzera family.
After trial: Settlement with the City of Chicago, with no appeal. The Manzera family's separate $10,000,000 share of the same $20,000,000 resolution was negotiated by other counsel and is not part of this figure.
Cavanagh Sorich Law Group LLC2018 · U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division (Manzera v. Frugoli, No. 1:13-cv-05626)Read the full story → - $10 millionSettlement
$10 Million Settlement After Woman, 26, Died of Dehydration in Untreated Heroin Withdrawal in County Jail
The parents of Madaline Pitkin, who died in the Washington County Jail in Hillsboro, Oregon in 2014 while going through untreated heroin withdrawal, recovered a $10 million settlement from Washington County and its jail medical contractor, Corizon Health, after a federal judge approved the deal in December 2018.
After trial: The case settled before trial. A federal judge approved the $10 million settlement, split between Washington County and Corizon Health, on December 7, 2018.
Paulson Coletti Trial Attorneys2018 · U.S. District Court, District of Oregon (No. 3:16-cv-02235-AA)Read the full story → - $8.62 millionSettlement
$8.62 Million Settlement After Former UNC Student Drove Wrong-Way on I-85, Killing Three
Three people died and a child was seriously injured when a 20-year-old drove the wrong way on Interstate 85 after a night of underage drinking supplied by bars and a fraternity; Maginnis Howard's Shawn Howard helped secure an $8.62 million settlement against 18 of the 19 defendants one month before trial.
- $8.23 millionSettlement
Paraplegic Construction Worker Recovers $8.225 Million After Scaffolding Fall at Clark Developers Site
Jose Criollo, 46, fell from an unguarded scaffolding tower after airborne debris struck his eyes, sustaining a complete spinal cord injury at T12-T13 that left him permanently paraplegic; the case settled for $8.225 million against the general contractor and his employer combined.
- $6.5 millionSettlementPaid
Chesterfield County Settles Excessive-Force Suit Over Taser That Ignited Crash Victim's Clothing
In February 2015 a Chesterfield County, Virginia police officer fired a Taser at Miles November, a 27-year-old man trapped in a wrecked car soaked in gasoline after a police chase. His clothing ignited and he suffered burns over most of his body, followed by months in the hospital and more than 30 surgeries. He sued the county and the officer in federal court in Richmond. The case settled in 2018 for $6.5 million, paid by the county's commercial insurer and its self-insurance fund.
After trial: The case settled before trial, so there was no verdict or appeal. The county's commercial insurer and its self-insurance fund funded the payment.
Marks & Harrison2018 · U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, RichmondRead the full story → - $3.8 millionSettlement
$3.8 Million Settlement for Family of Grandmother Killed in Head-On Crash on Farmington Avenue
Michael Jainchill of RisCassi & Davis secured a $3.8 million settlement for the adult children of Janet Pulver, a 66-year-old Avon grandmother killed when a speeding driver crossed the center line and struck her car head-on in Farmington, Connecticut.
- $3 millionSettlement
$3 Million Settlement After Teen Killed at DeKalb Apartment Complex With Complicit Security Guards
A 15-year-old was shot and killed near the entrance of Creekside Forest Apartments in South DeKalb, where security guards were alleged to be taking cuts of drug deal proceeds and the complex gate sat broken, leading to a $3 million settlement at the full insurance limit.
- $2 millionSettlement
$2 Million Underinsured Motorist Settlement for Writer Rear-Ended on I-95 by Drunk Driver
Douglas Mincey, a retired engineer and author, was rear-ended on I-95 in Jasper County in March 2016 by a driver who had been drinking. He had a lower back injury that required several surgeries and concussive symptoms. His underinsured motorist carrier, USAA, agreed to pay $2 million on April 6, 2018, before the case reached the jury roster.
- $1.75 millionSettlementPaid
Family of Man Shot by Lynnwood Police Settles Federal Suit for $1.75 Million
On January 30, 2017, Lynnwood police officer Zachary Yates fired ten shots at 36-year-old Jeremy Dowell, a Mountlake Terrace man with mental health issues who was carrying a knife on Highway 99, and killed him. Investigators concluded the shooting was within legal standards and prosecutors declined to charge Yates, but twelve witnesses later signed sworn declarations contradicting the official account, ten of them saying Yates kept firing at a stumbling or already fallen Dowell. Dowell's estate and his parents sued Yates individually for excessive force in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in May 2018. The parties settled on August 31, 2018, and Lynnwood's insurance risk pool paid $1.75 million in late September under the city's obligation to defend the officer, with no admission of wrongdoing.
After trial: Settled at mediation for $1.75 million before any ruling on the merits, so no court decided the excessive-force question. The city's insurance risk pool paid in full in late September 2018, with no admission of wrongdoing.
Budge & Heipt, PLLC2018 · U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, SeattleRead the full story → - $1.75 millionSettlement
$1.75 Million Settlement for Electrician Whose Ladder Was Pulled Out From Under Him
A 46-year-old electrician suffered an open ankle fracture when his supervisor's wire-pulling yanked his ladder out from under him at a Staten Island construction site; the firm turned a $750,000 offer into a $1.75 million recovery.
All 2018 verdicts and settlements
116 results, largest first
A St. Louis jury returned a $4.69 billion verdict against Johnson and Johnson on behalf of 22 women who developed ovarian cancer after years of using the company's talcum powder products, with Thomas K. Neill of Gray, Ritter and Graham, P.C. serving on the plaintiff trial team.
A St. Louis jury in July 2018 awarded 22 women and their families $4.69 billion, the largest U.S. verdict of that year, finding that asbestos in Johnson & Johnson's talcum powder products caused ovarian cancer; a Missouri appellate court upheld $2.11 billion in 2020.
Scott Powell of Hare Wynn Newell and Newton served as one of four co-lead class counsel in the $1.51 billion nationwide settlement against Syngenta, recovering losses for hundreds of thousands of U.S. corn growers, grain handlers, and ethanol producers whose market access to China was cut off after the company prematurely commercialized an unapproved GMO corn trait.
A Clayton County jury awarded $1 billion to a woman who was raped at age 14 by an armed security guard her employer hired without verifying he was licensed to carry a weapon.
On February 13, 2016, 21-year-old Riley McPherson was killed on U.S. 271 near Gilmer, Texas, when his van struck the side of a Jefferson Trucking flatbed tractor-trailer that was blocking all four lanes of the highway while its driver, on hour 17 of a run home from Ohio, tried to back it into a private driveway. McPherson's parents, Eddie McPherson and Karen Pearson, sued Jefferson Trucking, driver Eric Wayne Jefferson, and Timothy Wayne Jefferson in the 115th District Court of Upshur County. On November 8, 2018, a jury apportioned 65 percent fault to Eric Jefferson, 20 percent to Jefferson Trucking, 10 percent to Timothy Jefferson, and 5 percent to McPherson, and set damages at $260 million, which the comparative-fault finding reduced to $247 million. The defendants appealed, then voluntarily dismissed their own appeal, leaving the trial court judgment intact.
A Dallas County jury awarded $242.1 million to Benjamin and Kristi Reavis after the front seatbacks of their 2002 Lexus ES 300 collapsed in a rear-end crash and both parents were thrown into their two small children, who suffered permanent brain injuries. Frank L. Branson led the trial team from The Law Offices of Frank L. Branson, which included Debbie Branson. The trial judge reduced the judgment to about $213 million under the Texas punitive damages cap, a divided Dallas appeals court affirmed in 2021, and the case then settled in December 2021 on confidential terms while Toyota's appeal was pending before the Texas Supreme Court.
A $160 million settlement, the largest pre-verdict settlement in Pennsylvania court history, resolved claims against U-Haul after an overfilled propane tank exploded at a North Philadelphia food truck, killing a mother and her teenage daughter and severely burning three others.
After spinal surgery at the Detroit Medical Center's Children's Hospital of Michigan left a 10-year-old girl partially paralyzed and permanently incontinent, and her surgeon took two vacations before the hardware came out, a Wayne County jury awarded $135 million.
An Oakland County jury awarded the Tran family $130,571,897 in 2018 after finding that Beaumont Hospital technicians failed to call a code blue or provide chest compressions when a two-month-old infant suffered a breath-hold spell during a renal scan, leaving him with permanent brain damage and cerebral palsy.
Moshe Maimon of Levy Konigsberg led the trial team that won a $117 million verdict for Stephen Lanzo III, the first jury finding that Johnson & Johnson talc caused a plaintiff's mesothelioma. The New Jersey Appellate Division reversed the judgment in April 2021 over inadmissible expert testimony, and no retrial or final resolution has been publicly reported since, with J&J's talc bankruptcy filings stalling the litigation for years.
A Manhattan jury awarded $85 million to a writer and former New York Times columnist who was severely injured by a double-decker sightseeing bus while lawfully crossing the street.
Thirty-two male survivors of a school-contracted psychiatrist who abused students across more than two decades reached an $80 million settlement with Kamehameha Schools, described at the time as the largest personal-injury settlement in Hawaii history.
A Clay County, Missouri jury awarded $76 million to the family of David Ford, a 48-year-old delivery driver crushed by moving machinery while dropping off vehicle seats at Ford Motor Company's Kansas City Assembly Plant. The Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed the verdict in full in 2019.
A Santa Fe jury returned a $73.2 million verdict, the largest medical malpractice award in New Mexico history at the time, after finding that an OB/GYN and his clinic failed to recognize a high-risk pregnancy, leading to a prolonged birth that left an infant with permanent brain damage and a non-functional right arm.
In April 2018, the first New Jersey trial over C.R. Bard's pelvic mesh implants ended with a $68 million verdict for Mary McGinnis and her husband: $33 million in compensatory damages and $35 million in punitive damages. On July 25, 2023, the New Jersey Supreme Court reversed, holding that Bard was denied a fair trial because the jury never heard that the FDA had cleared the devices through the 510(k) process, and ordered a new trial on all issues. No retrial verdict or disclosed settlement has been publicly reported since.
The City of Seattle and its five insurers paid $65.75 million to Brooke Taylor, a 38-year-old Susman Godfrey partner who suffered a catastrophic traumatic brain injury when a Seattle Fire Department aid unit went through a red light at Fourth Avenue and Seneca Street in April 2016 and struck her Porsche, spinning it into a signal box and a tree. Todd Gardner of Swanson Gardner Meyers negotiated the settlement, approved in King County Superior Court in late December 2018 and reported as the largest personal injury settlement in city history and likely the largest in Washington state.
A propane tank ruptured aboard a Philadelphia food truck on July 1, 2014, killing the truck's owner and her 17-year-old daughter and burning a teenage girl who was helping in the business. Less than a week before the case was set for trial, U-Haul agreed in June 2018 to pay $160 million, plus an additional confidential amount, to resolve the claims of all four victims, with $54.35 million allocated to the girl, identified in press accounts only as Jane Doe because she was still a minor. Plaintiffs' lawyers said her share was the largest settlement ever paid to a minor in Pennsylvania state court history. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that she was represented by lawyers including Thomas J. Duffy. Because she was a minor, the agreement had to be approved by a judge in the Orphans' Court division of the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas.
A Los Angeles County jury awarded $53.7 million to two brothers left with traumatic brain injuries after a CRST big rig crossed the center line on State Route 14 and hit their car head-on.
A 12-year-old's catastrophic injuries from a rotten campground tree produced a $47.5 million pretrial settlement against San Mateo County, PG&E, and their contractors, reportedly the largest single-plaintiff personal injury settlement in California history.
A Franklin County jury awarded $44.5 million to a southeastern Ohio boy left with locked-in syndrome after Athens Medical Laboratory took six days to report markedly abnormal STAT blood tests, and the trial court then refused to apply Ohio's noneconomic damages cap, holding it unconstitutional as applied.
A Boston jury awarded $43.1 million on October 12, 2018 to the widow and son of Louis Summerlin, a former brake mechanic and lifelong menthol smoker who died of lung cancer in 2015 at 73, finding R.J. Reynolds' Salem and Kool cigarettes defectively designed and the company guilty of fraud, while clearing Philip Morris and an auto parts distributor. Jerome Block of Levy Konigsberg tried the case with Michael Shepard of Shepard Law. It was the first trial in the country to take a lung cancer claim to verdict against both tobacco and asbestos defendants, and the largest verdict in New England that year.
Two men who suffered severe blast, burn, and traumatic brain injuries when a KOMO news helicopter fell onto their vehicles during morning rush hour in March 2014 received a $40 million settlement five weeks into trial.
A 12-year-old girl suffered permanent, catastrophic brain damage after cardiac arrest during a PICC-line procedure at Highland Park Hospital, and Power Rogers secured a $40 million settlement that the Jury Verdict Reporter identified as the largest-ever Cook County recovery for a brain-injured minor.
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.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.