Top Personal Injury Verdicts and Settlements of 2019

A $8 Billion Risperdal Verdict in Philadelphia, Then a Judge Cut It to $6.8 Million

A Philadelphia jury awarded $8 billion in punitive damages against Johnson & Johnson over Risperdal and male breast growth in a young patient, an award the trial judge later reduced to $6.8 million.

After trial: The compensatory award in this case was $680,000. The trial judge remitted the $8 billion punitive verdict to $6.8 million in January 2020 as disproportionate to it, and both sides appealed.

$800 Million Settlement for Route 91 Harvest Shooting Victims Against MGM Resorts

Robert Eglet of Eglet Adams served as lead counsel for approximately 2,500 of the more than 4,400 plaintiffs who secured an $800 million settlement from MGM Resorts International over the October 1, 2017 Route 91 Harvest Festival mass shooting, one of the largest victim-compensation settlements in U.S. history.

$305 Million Settlement Ends 19-Year Lead Paint Fight Against Sherwin-Williams, ConAgra, and NL Industries

Mary Alexander & Associates served as co-counsel for seven California counties and three cities in a landmark public-nuisance action that secured a $1.15 billion trial judgment (later reduced on appeal to pre-1951 homes) and ultimately resolved in 2019 for $305 million to fund lead paint abatement across California residences.

After trial: $1.15 billion verdict; later settled for $305 million.

$260 Million Opioid Settlement for Cuyahoga and Summit Counties

In the hours before the first federal opioid trial was to begin, Spangenberg Shibley and Liber helped secure a $260 million settlement from McKesson, Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen, and Teva on behalf of Cuyahoga and Summit counties.

$151.8 Million Verdict for Paralyzed Man After 1998 Ford Explorer Rollover

A Dallas County, Alabama jury awarded Travaris Smith $151.8 million after a 1998 Ford Explorer rolled twice and severed his spinal cord, finding Ford failed its own safety standards and destroyed test data to conceal the defect.

$140 Million Settlement After an 18-Wheeler Crash Left an East Texas Driver Quadriplegic

A 39-year-old man was left quadriplegic in 2017 when an 18-wheeler struck his vehicle on Highway 259 near Ore City in Upshur County, Texas. The case went to trial, where evidence showed the truck's driver, Dijuana Smith, had been involved in multiple crashes before the wreck, and where attorneys said she had violated state and federal trucking regulations. Goudarzi & Young, L.L.P., of Gilmer, Texas, represented the injured man, and the parties reached a $140 million settlement in July 2019. The firm, and later a Lawdragon profile of managing partner Brent Goudarzi, both described it as the largest settlement for a single plaintiff in American legal history. The identities of the plaintiff and the trucking company were not publicly disclosed.

$134 Million Jury Verdict for Childhood Sexual Abuse Survivor Leads to Ohio Supreme Court Constitutional Ruling

A Cuyahoga County jury awarded $134 million to a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, and the Ohio Supreme Court later struck down a statutory damages cap as unconstitutional when applied to child victims of intentional criminal acts.

After trial: In December 2022 the Ohio Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that Ohio's statutory cap on noneconomic damages is unconstitutional as applied to child sexual-abuse survivors with catastrophic psychological injuries, reversed the appeals court, and reinstated the full $134 million jury verdict. Defendant Roy Pompa is serving life without parole for the underlying convictions, so the judgment against him individually is likely largely uncollectable.

$123 Million Verdict for Victims of Aurora Bridge Duck Boat Crash -- Largest Non-Punitive PI Trial Verdict in Washington History

A King County jury awarded $123 million to 40 plaintiffs after five international students were killed and dozens injured when a Ride the Ducks amphibious vehicle suffered a catastrophic axle fracture on Seattle's Aurora Bridge in 2015.

After trial: The award covered roughly 40 plaintiffs, with individual shares ranging from about $40,000 to $25 million.

Philadelphia Jury Awards $120 Million Against J&J's Ethicon Over Eroded Pelvic Mesh

A Philadelphia jury found that Ethicon negligently designed the TVT-O pelvic mesh implanted in Susan McFarland of Altoona and returned $120 million, which Kline & Specter called the largest pelvic-mesh verdict reached to that point.

After trial: Ethicon appealed. No independent source confirms how the appeal was resolved.

Philadelphia Jury Hits J&J's Ethicon With $80 Million Over Eroded Prolift Mesh

A Philadelphia jury returned $80 million, including $50 million in punitive damages, against Johnson & Johnson and its Ethicon unit after finding the Prolift transvaginal mesh implanted in Patricia Mesigian was defective and inadequately labeled.

Brooklyn Jury Awards Paralyzed Cyclist $110.17 Million Against NYC Transit

A Brooklyn jury found the NYC Transit Authority fully at fault after a track crew dropped a railroad tie onto cyclist Robert Liciaga, severing his spine, and returned $110,174,972.38.

After trial: Judgment was entered at $69.7 million after post-trial reductions; the appeal was decided in 2024.

Schnitzer Steel Settles Fatal Crash Case for $68 Million After $280 Million Verdict

On July 18, 2016, a Schnitzer Southeast tractor-trailer crossed the center line of U.S. Highway 80 in Russell County, Alabama, and killed five members of one family in a head-on collision, including Judy Madere, 58. A Muscogee County State Court jury in Columbus, Georgia found Schnitzer Southeast and its parent, Schnitzer Steel Industries, liable and returned a $280,065,000 verdict for Madere's death on August 23, 2019, reported at the time as the largest wrongful death verdict against a trucking company. Schnitzer said it would appeal, but instead of litigating the verdict, it resolved Madere's suit together with her twin sister Trudy Hebert's separate, still pending suit from the same crash for a combined $68 million in the following fiscal quarter, according to Schnitzer's SEC filings. Three earlier suits from the same crash, brought by the estates of the two children and their mother, had already settled for $35 million combined. The individual amounts within the $68 million settlement are not public.

After trial: Schnitzer Southeast's counsel said immediately after the August 23, 2019 verdict that it planned to appeal, calling the trial 'riddled with error.' No appellate ruling was found. Instead, Schnitzer Steel's SEC filings show that in the first quarter of its 2020 fiscal year, the quarter right after trial, the company settled this suit together with the still pending suit of Judy Madere's twin sister Trudy Hebert for a combined $68 million, and that the combined $103 million paid across all five wrongful death suits from the crash was substantially covered by insurance with no further contingencies remaining. See more

$60 Million Verdict for San Antonio Man Hurt When Drunk Driver Blew a Red Light at 78 MPH

A Bexar County jury returned a $59.8 million verdict, later converted to a $60.09 million judgment, for 23-year-old Armando Guerrero III after a drunk driver ran a red light at nearly twice the posted speed limit on Southwest Military Drive.

A Classroom Flame Demonstration, a Fireball, and a $59.17 Million Verdict

After a methanol "rainbow" demonstration erupted into a fireball and burned 16-year-old Alonzo Yanes over more than 30 percent of his body, Gair Gair Conason won a $59.17 million verdict against the New York City Department of Education and his chemistry teacher.

$58.5 Million Verdict for Families Whose Donated Relatives Were Sold by Body Broker

A Maricopa County jury awarded $58.5 million to families who donated deceased relatives' bodies believing they would be used for medical research, only to learn the Biological Resource Center of Arizona had dismembered and sold the remains to brokers worldwide.

Livermore Retiree Whose Lymphoma Spread to Her Brain Holds a $56 Million Roundup Judgment Through the U.S. Supreme Court

Alberta Pilliod, a retired teacher and school administrator from Livermore, sprayed Roundup on the couple's properties for nearly 30 years and was diagnosed in April 2015 with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma in her central nervous system, which recurred in her brain in 2016. On May 13, 2019, an Alameda County jury awarded her about $37.2 million in compensatory damages and $1 billion in punitive damages, alongside a separate award to her husband. Judge Winifred Smith reduced her judgment to $56,005,830, the Court of Appeal affirmed in August 2021, and the California Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court both declined to disturb it.

After trial: The jury's $1.0372 billion award to Alberta Pilliod was reduced by the trial court on Monsanto's new-trial motion under Code of Civil Procedure section 662.5: noneconomic damages were recalculated on the trial evidence and punitive damages were capped at a four-to-one ratio under State Farm v. Campbell, producing a judgment of $56,005,830 that she accepted. See more

Manhattan Jury Awards $102.1 Million Against Live Nation for a Worker Whose Booth Was Hit by a Forklift at Jones Beach, and Even After Appellate Cuts the Case Set New York's Record for Pain and Suffering

A Manhattan jury awarded Mark Perez approximately $102.1 million against Live Nation Worldwide for the traumatic brain injury he suffered when a forklift struck the vendor booth he was building at the Jones Beach Theater, though the courts later cut the award sharply: the Appellate Division reduced pain and suffering to $20 million (still the largest such award ever sustained on appeal in New York), and court records show the case ultimately resolved for about $55 million including interest.

After trial: Reduced on appeal: the First Department cut pain and suffering to $20M in 2021; total recovery with interest was roughly $55M.

Cook County Jury Awards $101 Million in West Suburban Medical Center Birth Injury Case

A Cook County jury returned a $101 million verdict against West Suburban Medical Center after staff ignored fetal monitoring for six hours during labor, though a pre-verdict high-low agreement limited the family's recovery to $50 million.

After trial: Before the verdict, Tenet Healthcare and the family had signed a high-low agreement capping any recovery at $50 million in exchange for the hospital's promise not to appeal. When the jury returned $101 million, the agreement reduced the payout to $50 million and the case ended without an appeal.

Santa Fe Jury Awards $40.5 Million After Student Trucker's Head-On Crash Kills Motorist

On February 23, 2017, a Werner Enterprises student driver on his eighth day behind the wheel crossed four lanes of Interstate 10 and the median outside Las Cruces, New Mexico, and struck Kathryn Armijo's vehicle head-on, killing her. Her estate sued Werner, the driver, and the driver's trainer over inadequate training and supervision, and a Santa Fe County jury returned a $40.5 million verdict on October 11, 2019, including $10 million in punitive damages. David Harris, a partner at Sico Hoelscher Harris LLP, was plaintiff co-counsel for the estate. No appeal of the verdict has surfaced, and Werner, a large publicly traded and insured motor carrier, is treated as having satisfied the judgment.

After trial: No appeal of the verdict was found in available searches, and New Mexico had no cap on compensatory or punitive damages for a case of this kind in 2019, so the $40.5 million appears to have stood as returned. Werner's own annual reports through 2020 disclose only the separate May 2018 Texas verdict as being under appeal. See more

$39 Million Verdict for Teenager Who Lost an Arm and a Leg to a Drag Racer at an Edison Industrial Park

A Middlesex County jury awarded $39 million on February 1, 2019 to Hussein Agiz, who was 18 when a drag racing car struck his motorcycle inside the Heller Industrial Parks complex in Edison, costing him his right arm and right leg. Jurors had earlier found Heller 40 percent at fault for tolerating years of documented drag racing on its property. The case later settled on appeal for an undisclosed amount.

After trial: The case settled on appeal for an undisclosed amount.