Top Personal Injury Verdicts and Settlements of 2021

$301 Billion Dram-Shop Verdict Against a Closed Bar, the Largest Jury Award Ever Recorded

On December 7, 2021, a Nueces County jury in Corpus Christi returned $1.04 billion in actual damages and $300 billion in exemplary damages, about $301.04 billion in total, against Beer Belly's Sports Bar and its owner for overserving a driver who killed Tamra Kay Kindred, 59, and her 16-year-old granddaughter in a 2017 crash. It was reported as the largest jury verdict ever recorded, and it was built to be symbolic: the bar had closed in 2019, Texas does not require bars to carry liquor liability insurance, and the family and its lawyers said openly that they expected to recover nothing and sought the number as a public statement against drunk driving. John Flood of Flood Trial Lawyers was lead counsel, with Sico, Hoelscher & Harris LLP as co-counsel; Craig Sico delivered the closing argument that asked jurors to decide how loudly their voice would be heard.

After trial: Largely symbolic award. The bar closed in 2019 and the family said it expected to collect nothing; the verdict was sought as a public statement against drunk driving.

Nassau County Secures $1.1 Billion From the Three Largest U.S. Drug Distributors Over the Opioid Epidemic

Hunter Shkolnik of Napoli Shkolnik represented Nassau County in negotiations that produced a $1.1 billion settlement with McKesson, Cardinal Health, and AmerisourceBergen, the three largest prescription drug distributors in the United States.

Nassau County Jury Returns $1 Billion in I-95 Crash That Killed UNF Freshman Connor Dzion

A Nassau County jury found two trucking companies responsible for the 2017 chain-reaction crash on I-95 near Yulee that killed 18-year-old Connor Dzion, returning a $1 billion verdict that Curry Pajcic won for the teen's parents.

After trial: Most of the award fell on a carrier that did not defend the case and carried a $1 million policy; the bulk of the verdict is uncollectable.

$730 Million Verdict Over Fatal Superload Crash in Titus County, After a $50 Million Landstar Settlement

A Titus County jury awarded $730 million to the family of Toni Combest, a 73-year-old great-grandmother killed when a Landstar Ranger truck hauling a 197,000-pound Navy submarine propeller struck her car on a narrow Highway 271 bridge, though the family's actual recovery came from pretrial settlements: $50 million from Landstar Ranger and $1 million from escort company S&M Pilot Service, with the verdict itself returned against the small front-escort company 2A Pilot Cars.

After trial: Landstar settled for $50M days before jury selection and S&M Pilot Service for $1M; the $730M verdict came against the remaining escort-vehicle company and no public record documents collection. The family's confirmed recovery is the $51M in settlements.

Federal Jury Finds CVS, Walgreens and Walmart Liable in Ohio Opioid Case, $650 Million Abatement Ordered

After a six-week federal trial, a jury found three of the nation's largest retail pharmacy chains created a public nuisance by flooding Lake and Trumbull Counties, Ohio with opioid pills, and a judge ordered $650 million to fund a 15-year abatement plan.

Arkansas Counties and Cities Win $216 Million Opioid Settlement Against 65 Pharma Defendants

Rainwater, Holt and Sexton was one of the founding firms on the coalition legal team that brought 72 Arkansas counties and 210 cities together to sue 65 opioid manufacturers, distributors, and retailers, part of the litigation that produced a $216 million statewide share of the national settlement announced in 2021.

After trial: Statewide share of national settlement.

$185 Million Verdict for Three Teachers Poisoned by Monsanto PCBs in School Lighting

A King County jury awarded three Monroe, Washington teachers $185 million after finding that PCBs manufactured by Monsanto leached from fluorescent light ballasts at their school and caused permanent neurological injuries.

After trial: The Washington Court of Appeals reversed the verdict in 2024, and the Washington Supreme Court reinstated it in October 2025.

$127.5 Million Settlement for Parkland Survivors and Families After FBI Ignored Advance Warnings

Kristina Infante and the Podhurst Orseck team secured a $127.5 million settlement from the federal government on behalf of 40 survivors and families of victims killed or wounded in the February 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, after demonstrating the FBI received advance warnings it failed to investigate.

Boone County Jury Returns $74 Million Verdict Against Eaton Asphalt in a Mother's Death

A Boone County jury found that Eaton Asphalt's improper repaving of Richwood Road created the edge drop-off that sent a flatbed truck into Amy Skiba's car, and awarded her three children $74 million.

$49.8 Million Verdict for Brain-Injured Kingsburg Man After Paramedic Removed Breathing Tube During Transport

A Fresno County jury awarded $49.8 million to a Kingsburg mortgage broker left in a permanent vegetative state after an American Ambulance paramedic dislodged his breathing tube during transport and could not restore his airway.

Mason Falls Five Feet Through Scaffold Gap on Longfellow Bridge, Wins $26.6 Million Verdict

A Middlesex County jury awarded $26.6 million to union mason John Rooney, Jr. after he fell through a two-foot scaffold gap during the Longfellow Bridge rehabilitation and suffered seven spinal operations and permanent disability, with pre-judgment interest bringing the total compensatory judgment to roughly $45.5 million.

$38.8 Million Verdict Against Republic Services After Garbage Truck Killed 11-Year-Old in Crosswalk

A Clark County jury returned $38.8 million against Republic Services after one of its garbage trucks turned through a marked crosswalk and struck and killed an 11-year-old girl who was crossing with the walk signal.

$38.1 Million Verdict for Restaurant Owner Injured Going to His Sister's Aid in West Hollywood Beating

Matthew Greene, a restaurant and bar owner, ran to help his sister when four men, twin brothers Maurice and Alberto Driz, Maurice's son Shawn Driz, and their friend William Joelson, knocked her unconscious outside the Nice Guy restaurant in West Hollywood at about 1:30 a.m. on April 17, 2015, after she tried to stop them beating a photographer. He was beaten and left with a fractured spine and post-traumatic stress disorder. After a three-week trial in July 2021 in which the four defendants represented themselves, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury awarded him $17.9 million in compensatory damages, found malice, and assessed about $20.2 million in punitive damages against the four men. The siblings' combined award was $72,645,492; a third victim won $8.9 million separately.

After trial: Final, and according to the plaintiffs' own accounting entirely unpaid as of 2026, with 10 percent post-judgment interest accruing. Shawn Driz filed Chapter 7 the night before trial, and a judgment for willful and malicious injury is not dischargeable. See more

Paralyzed Navy Veteran Awarded $35 Million Over Broward Car Crash

Marc Laspes, a 26-year-old Navy veteran, was driving near Sheridan Street and North 35th Avenue in Broward County on August 2, 2017 when his vehicle collided with a car driven by Talena Castillo. He woke in a hospital bed three days later unable to feel his legs, paralyzed from the chest down by a burst fracture in one of his vertebrae. He sued Castillo for negligence in Broward County Circuit Court, case CACE-17-017741, and on July 13, 2021 the jury returned a verdict of $35 million. No appeal, remittitur or reduction of the verdict has surfaced in Florida's appellate record or in later coverage of the case.

$34.4 Million Verdict for Woman Injured Stopping Four Men Beating a Photographer in West Hollywood

Anne Greene, a model and actress, intervened at about 1:30 a.m. on April 17, 2015, when four men, twin brothers Maurice and Alberto Driz, Maurice's son Shawn Driz, and their friend William Joelson, were beating a photographer outside the Nice Guy restaurant on La Cienega Boulevard in West Hollywood. She was punched in the head from behind and left with a fractured skull and jaw, a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. After a three-week trial in July 2021 in which all four defendants represented themselves and claimed self-defense, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury awarded her $20.1 million in compensatory damages, found malice, and assessed a further $14.3 million in punitive damages against the four men. The siblings' combined award was $72,645,492; a third victim won $8.9 million separately.

After trial: Final, and according to the plaintiffs' own accounting entirely unpaid as of 2026, with 10 percent post-judgment interest accruing. Shawn Driz filed Chapter 7 the night before trial, and a judgment for willful and malicious injury is not dischargeable. See more

$34.1 Million Verdict Against CoxHealth for a Birth Injury Tied to Excessive Pitocin at a Springfield Hospital

A Greene County jury awarded $34,107,628 to a boy who suffered permanent brain damage during his 2014 birth at Cox South hospital in Springfield, where escalating doses of the labor drug Pitocin deprived him of oxygen. It was the largest medical malpractice verdict in Missouri in 2021, and because the injury predated the state's 2015 damages cap statute, the noneconomic award stood without reduction.

After trial: Missouri's damages cap did not apply because the 2015 cap statute postdated the 2014 injury. No appeal was reported and the funds were paid into a special needs trust in 2022.

$33 Million Verdict for Mother of Engineer Killed by Driver Going 99 mph in a 35 mph Zone

Chad Hemmat and co-counsel secured a $33 million wrongful death verdict for the mother of a 30-year-old Aurora engineer killed when a driver traveling nearly three times the posted speed limit ran a red light and T-boned his car at an I-225 interchange.

$32 Million Verdict for Woman Who Died of Mesothelioma From Asbestos Carried Home on Husband's Clothes

A Richland County jury unanimously awarded $32 million, including $10 million in punitive damages against Kraft Heinz, after finding that secondhand asbestos fibers carried home on work clothes caused Kathy Weist's fatal mesothelioma diagnosis.

$27 Million Settlement for Family of George Floyd, Announced as the Largest of Its Kind

Ben Crump, with co-counsel Antonio Romanucci and L. Chris Stewart, negotiated a $27 million settlement between the family of George Floyd and the City of Minneapolis, announced by the family's lawyers as the largest pretrial settlement of a civil rights wrongful-death claim in American history. The city council approved the payment unanimously in March 2021, while jury selection in Derek Chauvin's murder trial was underway blocks away.

$25 Million Verdict After 3-Year-Old Died in Corded Blind the Maker Could Have Fitted With a Tilt Wand

A 3-year-old girl was found with a window blind cord wrapped around her neck at her family's home in Lehi. She died a week later of brain damage from oxygen deprivation. The jury found Century Blinds had made corded blinds for years without fitting a tilt wand that cost nothing extra, and without supplying the cleats that let a parent wind cords out of reach.

After trial: The $24,000,000 to the family is compensatory, not punitive. No Utah appellate record has been found, so it is not confirmed that judgment was entered on the full $25,000,000, whether Century Blinds appealed, or how the award was apportioned among co-defendants. See more