Top Personal Injury Recoveries Confirmed Paid of 2019
Personal injury results from 2019, nationwide where the record shows the money was paid, or the defendant is an insurer or institution that pays, ranked by amount.
- $56.01 millionVerdictReduced from $1.04 billionPaid
$1.04 Billion Roundup Verdict for Livermore Retiree With Brain Lymphoma
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: Reduced and paid. The jury's $1.0372 billion award was reduced by the trial court to a $56,005,830 judgment that she accepted.
Wisner Baum LLP2019 · Alameda County Superior Court, Oakland (Judge Winifred Y. Smith)Read the full story → - $40.5 millionVerdictPaid
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 has been reported, and New Mexico had no damages cap for a case like this in 2019, so the $40.5 million appears to have stood as returned. Werner is a large insured carrier, but no source confirms the date or fact of payment.
Sico Hoelscher Harris LLP2019 · First Judicial District Court, Santa Fe County, New MexicoRead the full story → - $33.1 millionVerdictReduced from $102.1 millionPaid
$102.1 Million Verdict Against Live Nation for a Worker Hit by a Forklift at Jones Beach
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: in 2021 the First Department cut past and future pain and suffering to $20 million, leaving about $33.1 million in compensatory damages, which is the figure ranked. With prejudgment interest the recovery came to roughly $55 million, and it was paid.
- $30.74 millionVerdictReduced from $1.02 billionPaid
Livermore Man Diagnosed With Stage IV Lymphoma After Decades of Roundup Use Holds a $30.7 Million Judgment
Alva Pilliod mixed and sprayed Roundup on the family's Livermore-area properties from 1982 until illness stopped him in 2011, the year he was diagnosed at 69 with stage IV diffuse large B-cell lymphoma in his bones. On May 13, 2019, an Alameda County jury awarded him about $18 million in compensatory damages and $1 billion in punitive damages, alongside a separate award to his wife. Judge Winifred Smith reduced his judgment to $30,736,480, the Court of Appeal affirmed in August 2021, and the California and U.S. Supreme Courts declined review.
After trial: Reduced and paid. The jury's $1.018 billion award was reduced by the trial court to a $30,736,480 judgment that he accepted.
Wisner Baum LLP2019 · Alameda County Superior Court, Oakland (Judge Winifred Y. Smith)Read the full story → - $25.27 millionVerdictReduced from $80.3 millionPaid
Sonoma County Man's Roundup Cancer Case Ends in $25.3 Million Judgment After an $80 Million Verdict
Edwin Hardeman, 70, sprayed Roundup on his Sonoma County property for about 26 years and was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2015. In the first federal Roundup bellwether trial, a unanimous San Francisco jury found in March 2019 that the herbicide was a substantial factor in his cancer and that Monsanto failed to warn, awarding $5,267,634 in compensatory damages and $75 million in punitive damages. Judge Vince Chhabria cut the punitive award to $20 million as constitutionally excessive, leaving a $25,267,634 judgment. The Ninth Circuit affirmed in May 2021 and the U.S. Supreme Court denied Monsanto's petition in June 2022.
After trial: Reduced and paid. The district court cut the $75,000,000 punitive award to $20,000,000 on July 15, 2019, leaving a $25,267,634.10 judgment.
Wagstaff Law Firm2019 · U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San FranciscoRead the full story → - $22.5 millionSettlementPaid
$22.5 Million After a Six-Week-Old Was Left Permanently Brain Damaged During Routine Spinal Surgery
A Fitchburg family recovered $22.5 million after their six-week-old son suffered permanent brain damage during surgery at UW Health's American Family Children's Hospital. The suit alleged an anesthesia resident failed to respond to prolonged low blood pressure readings. It is the second largest payment ever made by Wisconsin's Injured Patients and Families Compensation Fund.
After trial: The settlement was paid through Wisconsin's Injured Patients and Families Compensation Fund, the second largest payment in that fund's recorded history. Most of the money was placed in two accounts for the child's lifetime care.
- $20 millionSettlementPaid
$20 Million Settlement for Family of Justine Ruszczyk Damond, Killed in Her Alley by Officer She Called
Justine Ruszczyk Damond called 911 to report a woman screaming behind her house, then walked out in her pajamas to meet the squad car. Officer Mohamed Noor shot her from the passenger seat. Minneapolis settled with her family for $20 million in May 2019, more than four times the largest police payout in the city's history.
After trial: Settlement agreed and approved; the civil case is final and was paid in full. The family directed $2 million of the $20 million to the Minneapolis Foundation's Fund for Safe Communities.
- $19.2 millionSettlementPaid
$19.2 Million Settlement for Elizabeth Gas Explosion That Killed Three Members of One Family
A gas explosion at a converted multi-family house in Elizabeth, New Jersey on November 11, 2015 badly burned six members of the Henderson family and, over the following weeks and months, killed three of them. The family sued the gas utility and the property owner, alleging an improperly capped gas line caused the blast. On February 11, 2019, a Union County Superior Court judge approved a $19.2 million settlement, reached in mediation, apportioned among three estates and three surviving claimants.
After trial: This was a mediated settlement approved by the court, not a litigated verdict, and no appeal followed. The $19.2 million figure is the total recovery before the deduction of court-approved attorney fees, funeral expenses and Medicaid liens; the percentages above apply to the net amount after those deductions.
Mazie Slater Katz & Freeman, LLC2019 · Superior Court of New Jersey, Union CountyRead the full story → - $16.86 millionVerdictReduced from $29.4 millionPaid
Appellate Court Restores Verdict After Hospital Delayed Diagnosis of Brain Bleed
A Kings County jury found New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation liable for the delayed diagnosis and treatment of a subdural hematoma in Carlyle Roberts, a 67-year-old brought to Kings County Hospital Center in Brooklyn after a hit-and-run crash, leaving him cognitively impaired, weak on his left side and dependent on others. The jury awarded $29,361,000, including $21,500,000 for pain and suffering, before the trial judge set the verdict aside and ordered a new trial over alleged misconduct in plaintiff's counsel's summation. The Appellate Division, Second Department reversed that order on February 24, 2021, reinstated the verdict, and separately found the pain and suffering award excessive, cutting it to $9,000,000. With the $7,861,000 future expense award left undisturbed, $16,861,000 stood. Silberstein, Awad & Miklos, P.C. (Robert A. Miklos) appeared for the plaintiff on the appeal, with Pollack, Pollack, Isaac & DeCicco, LLP (Brian J. Isaac) of counsel.
After trial: Reduced and reinstated. On February 24, 2021 the Appellate Division reinstated the verdict but found the $21,500,000 pain and suffering award excessive, ordering a new trial unless the plaintiff accepted $4,000,000 past and $5,000,000 future, and left the $7,861,000 future expense award standing.
Silberstein & Miklos2019 · Supreme Court, Kings County (Brooklyn), NY; Appellate Division, Second DepartmentRead the full story → - $8.25 millionSettlementPaid
$8.25 Million Settlement With Detroit for Family of 7-Year-Old Girl Shot by Police During 2010 Raid
A 7-year-old girl asleep on a couch with her grandmother was fatally shot in the head during a May 2010 Detroit police raid. Two criminal trials of the officer ended in hung juries and the charge was later dismissed. In April 2019, days before the civil trial was to begin, the City of Detroit settled the family's lawsuit for $8.25 million.
After trial: The case settled before trial, so there was no verdict; the only appeal was an earlier pretrial appeal on gross negligence, which the Michigan Supreme Court declined to hear. Detroit's corporation counsel confirmed the amount and said the City Council had to approve it.
Fieger, Fieger, Kenney & Harrington, P.C.2019 · Wayne County Circuit Court, Detroit, MichiganRead the full story →
All 2019 verdicts and settlements
146 results, largest first
An $800 million settlement from MGM Resorts International resolved claims by more than 4,400 plaintiffs over the October 1, 2017 Route 91 Harvest Festival mass shooting in Las Vegas, one of the largest victim-compensation settlements in U.S. history.
In multidistrict litigation before Judge Andrew J. Guilford, CaseyGerry served as class counsel in a $393.5 million settlement resolving allegations that Wells Fargo secretly loaded unnecessary collateral protection insurance onto auto loan accounts, pushing hundreds of thousands of borrowers into delinquency and causing roughly 27,000 wrongful vehicle repossessions.
A Manhattan jury found in May 2019 that asbestos in Johnson's Baby Powder and Shower to Shower caused Donna Olson's pleural mesothelioma, awarding $25 million in compensatory damages and $300 million in punitive damages, the largest talc verdict in New York history. Jerome H. Block of Levy Konigsberg tried the case. The trial court cut the award to $120 million in November 2020, and on July 19, 2022 the Appellate Division, First Department reversed outright and directed judgment for Johnson & Johnson, holding that the plaintiffs' medical expert never gave a scientific expression of the minimum lifetime exposure needed to cause the disease.
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.
Hours before opening arguments in the first federal opioid bellwether trial, Cuyahoga and Summit counties in Ohio secured a $260 million settlement from distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and McKesson, plus manufacturer Teva.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A DeKalb County jury awarded $81 million in total damages to LaQuan Taylor, a Navy veteran shot at least 11 times during a robbery in a Kroger parking lot. After apportioning 14 percent of the fault to the two assailants, the judgment against Kroger came to $69,660,000.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Tom Neill of Gray, Ritter and Graham represented the family of one victim killed when a 3,000-pound pressurized steam vessel exploded at Loy-Lange Box Company in St. Louis's Soulard neighborhood, launching the tank into a neighboring laundry and killing four people total; consolidated wrongful-death, injury, and property suits settled for more than $47 million.
A Philadelphia jury found on January 31, 2019 that three Ethicon pelvic mesh products were defective and awarded Suzanne Emmett, a Lancaster County woman, and her husband $41 million against Ethicon and Johnson & Johnson. The award included $15 million in compensatory damages to Emmett, $1 million to her husband for loss of consortium and $25 million in punitive damages. Emmett had needed nine surgeries. Ethicon said it would appeal.
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.
A Dallas jury awarded $37.6 million in February 2019 to Sarah Milburn, left quadriplegic after a 2015 Uber crash, after finding Honda's two-part third-row seat belt design so counterintuitive that fewer than one in ten unfamiliar users could operate it correctly; the Texas Supreme Court reversed the judgment in 2024 on statutory presumption grounds.
In the first consolidated multi-plaintiff talc trial, a Middlesex County jury awarded $37.3 million on September 11, 2019 to four people who developed mesothelioma after their parents powdered them with Johnson's Baby Powder as children, and a second jury added $750 million in punitive damages in February 2020, which Judge Ana Viscomi cut to $186.5 million under New Jersey's five-times cap. Moshe Maimon of Levy Konigsberg tried the case with Chris Placitella and Chris Panatier. On October 3, 2023 the Appellate Division reversed every judgment and ordered new trials, holding that the trial court had admitted three plaintiffs' experts without the gatekeeping New Jersey law requires.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.