Largest Personal Injury Verdicts Never Collected of 2024
Personal injury verdicts from 2024, nationwide that were awarded and stand, but that the record shows could not be collected: a defendant who was uninsured, closed, bankrupt, or in prison. Each is ranked at what the court awarded and labeled.
- $550 millionVerdictNot collectable
$550 Million Wrongful-Death Verdict After Driver Hit 107 mph on Drugs and Alcohol
A Clark County jury awarded $550 million, $50 million compensatory and $500 million punitive, to Nimfa Escobia after her husband Marcial was killed by a driver traveling 107 mph while impaired by alcohol, methamphetamine, ecstasy, and marijuana.
After trial: Nevada caps punitive damages at three times compensatory damages, which exposes the $500 million punitive portion of this verdict to reduction toward roughly $150 million if that cap is applied on appeal; no appellate ruling has been reported yet. The verdict is against an individual driver, Kevin Raspperry, whose insurer had already paid policy limits to the vehicle's owner rather than to him, so the judgment against him personally is largely uncollectable.
Bighorn Law2024 · Clark County District Court, Las Vegas, NV (Case No. A-21-842834-C)Read the full story → - $210 millionVerdictNot collectable
Bexar County Jury Awards $210 Million in Wrongful Death of Andreen McDonald
A Bexar County civil jury awarded $210 million to the family of Andreen McDonald, killed by her husband in 2019, in what is reported to be the largest personal injury verdict in county history.
After trial: Andre McDonald is serving a 20-year sentence for manslaughter plus 5 years for evidence tampering in the underlying criminal case, and his criminal appeal was denied in August 2024. The civil verdict is against an incarcerated individual defendant, and no confirmed outcome of a civil appeal has been reported.
- $159 millionVerdictNot collectable
$159 Million Verdict for Woman Left Quadriplegic by Drunk Driver Doing 79 in a 40 Zone
On October 18, 2020 Ryann Early, drunk and doing about 79 mph in a 40 zone, crossed into oncoming traffic on Albert S. White Drive in Whitestown and hit Sherry Schnee head-on. She broke her neck and is quadriplegic. He went to prison. On January 11, 2024 a Boone County jury awarded her $84,000,000 and her husband $75,000,000. Early is an individual with no insurer identified, and his own lawyer said afterward he wished there were actual dollars behind the number.
After trial: The verdict stands as returned, and no appeal of the civil judgment has been reported. Collection is unlikely: Ryann Early is serving a six-year sentence and no insurer has been named.
Waldron Tate Land LLC and Hume Smith Geddes Green & Simmons, LLP2024 · Boone Superior Court, Lebanon INRead the full story → - $141.5 millionVerdictNot collectable
Nassau County Jury Returns $141.5 Million Against Log-Truck Company
A Nassau County jury awarded $141.5 million, including $125 million in punitive damages, against K&N Logging after an unvetted driver's 80,000-pound log truck plowed into stopped school-zone traffic and left a young child with permanent brain damage.
After trial: The verdict is largely uncollectable. K&N Logging had stopped operating at least two years before trial, its owner was a school janitor running a small side business, and defense counsel said there are no assets to satisfy the judgment and no insurance policy covering punitive damages.
- $100 millionVerdictNot collectable
$100 Million Verdict for Infant Maimed in Circumcision by a Doctor Whose License Had Already Been Revoked
A Palm Beach County jury awarded $100 million against former OB/GYN Berto Lopez, who performed a catastrophic circumcision on a 10-day-old boy ten days after the Florida Board of Medicine revoked his license, though the unlicensed doctor skipped the trial and collection remains doubtful.
After trial: Default-style verdict against an unlicensed, unrepresented doctor with no known assets; the judgment is held in trust for the child but is considered uncollectable.
- $50 millionVerdictNot collectable
$50 Million Wrongful Death Verdict Against the Man Who Killed MacKenna Milhon
A Greene County jury awarded Rachel Crook $50 million in a wrongful death suit against Lonnie Williams, the man convicted of murdering her 19-year-old daughter, MacKenna Milhon. Williams is serving life without parole, and the judgment almost certainly cannot be collected from him. Crook pursued the case anyway, and has applied to Missouri's Tort Victims' Compensation Fund for partial recovery.
After trial: Williams is serving life without parole and will almost certainly never pay. The family applied to Missouri's Tort Victims' Compensation Fund for partial recovery.
- $30 millionNot collectable
Murdered Missouri Woman's Children Awarded $30 Million Default Judgment
Donelan Law filed the wrongful death suit that won a $30 million default judgment for the children of Cassidy Rainwater, who was killed in Dallas County, Missouri in 2021. James Phelps and Timothy Norton, the two men convicted of her murder, never answered the complaint, and the children, represented by Springfield attorney Amanda Johnson, waived a jury trial. On January 25, 2024, 30th Judicial Circuit Judge Mike Hendrickson reviewed the evidence of damages and entered an interlocutory default judgment against both men for $30 million. Both defendants are serving life sentences and neither is reported to have significant assets, so the children are unlikely to be paid anywhere near that figure by Phelps or Norton.
After trial: Default judgment entered January 25, 2024 after the defendants failed to answer. No trial was held, and no appeal or motion to set aside has been reported.
Donelan Law, LLC2024 · Circuit Court of Dallas County, Missouri (30th Judicial Circuit)Read the full story →
202 results, largest first
Leavitt, Yamane and Soldner represented Maui wildfire survivors and victims' families in the $4.037 billion global settlement resolving approximately 450 lawsuits arising from the August 2023 Lahaina fire.
A federal court in Washington, D.C. awarded $1.956 billion to 114 survivors and Gold Star family members in Carlson Law Firm's second successful default-judgment lawsuit holding Iran liable for the October 2000 USS Cole bombing.
A Philadelphia jury awarded $725.5 million to former Mobil service station mechanic Paul Gill, who developed acute myeloid leukemia after years of cleaning car parts with benzene-containing gasoline and solvents, in what was reported as the largest benzene verdict in U.S. history; the court later added over $90 million in delay damages, and the Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed the judgment in October 2026.
A Clark County jury awarded $550 million, $50 million compensatory and $500 million punitive, to Nimfa Escobia after her husband Marcial was killed by a driver traveling 107 mph while impaired by alcohol, methamphetamine, ecstasy, and marijuana.
A St. Louis jury awarded $495 million against Abbott Laboratories after finding the company failed to warn that its Similac cow's milk formula could cause necrotizing enterocolitis in premature infants.
The family of Greg Sharrigan, killed when a gas leak ignited at his Maynard home in September 2021, sued Eversource for $450 million, alleging the utility detected the underground leak three years before the fatal explosion and never fixed it.
A Philadelphia jury found that Monsanto failed to warn that Roundup could cause cancer and awarded John McKivison $2.25 billion. The trial judge later reduced the award to $400 million.
BASF Corporation agreed to pay $316.5 million to resolve claims by public water systems across the United States over PFAS contamination tied to firefighting foam. The sum is a $312.5 million settlement fund plus $4 million for notice and administration. Judge Richard Gergel approved it on Nov. 22, 2024, in the federal multidistrict litigation over aqueous film-forming foam. It is a class recovery shared among many water systems, not one plaintiff's award.
An Orange County jury awarded $310 million to the parents of Tyre Sampson, the 14-year-old who fell to his death from the Orlando FreeFall drop tower at ICON Park in 2022, in a case tried by Kimberly Wald and Michael Haggard against ride manufacturer Funtime Handels GmbH, which sent no lawyer or representative to the trial, leaving collection of the judgment from the absent Austrian company uncertain.
A St. Charles County judge entered a $300 million bench-trial judgment for a child, identified only as G.T., who was physically and sexually abused between the ages of three and five while in the care of Susan and James McLaurie, though one defendant died before the suit was filed and the only known insurance was a $303,000 policy.
An Ector County jury awarded $262.5 million to Isaac Sanchez, left quadriplegic when a drunk driver who had been served 19 drinks at Linx Bar and Grill rear-ended his motorcycle at a North Odessa intersection in June 2021.
A Richmond Circuit Court jury awarded $360 million to three former adolescent patients who were sexually abused by Dr. Daniel Davidow, the medical director of Cumberland Hospital for Children, during what he called routine femoral pulse exams.
Beasley Allen, representing Alabama on contingency, secured $220 million from opioid distributors Cardinal Health and Cencora after roughly 18 months of litigation, with every dollar directed to statewide opioid abatement programs.
A Bexar County civil jury awarded $210 million to the family of Andreen McDonald, killed by her husband in 2019, in what is reported to be the largest personal injury verdict in county history.
A Champaign County jury returned a $535 million verdict, the largest known single-plaintiff verdict in Illinois history, against a psychiatric facility that failed to prevent the rape of a 13-year-old female patient by another adolescent resident.
A Jefferson Circuit Court jury awarded $163,973,760 to Jilianne Warner, who was left permanently quadriplegic after a GEICO-dispatched tow truck plowed into her stopped car at highway speed; the verdict was later overturned on appeal.
A 2002 Dodge Ram 15-passenger van carrying 16 women from the We Are Living Proof sober-living program rolled over and caught fire on I-85 at the I-985 split in Gwinnett County on April 24, 2021, killing seven and injuring nine others. Families and survivors sued the van's driver, Chrysler and parent company Stellantis, the group home, and two repair shops, alleging a rollover-prone design, a defective steering system, and a fuel system that let gasoline ignite after impact. The claims settled in 2024 for a combined $162,000,000, described as the largest settlement from a single-vehicle wreck in Georgia history. Families and survivors were represented by several firms, including Shiver Hamilton Campbell and Beasley Allen.
A Clarke County jury awarded Leonard Street $150 million and his wife Tracy $10 million after finding that Daimler Truck North America and Western Star had defectively designed the cab of the 2023 Western Star he was driving, using a roof structure dating to 1995 and a suspension seat that did not hold him in place when the truck rolled.
On October 18, 2020 Ryann Early, drunk and doing about 79 mph in a 40 zone, crossed into oncoming traffic on Albert S. White Drive in Whitestown and hit Sherry Schnee head-on. She broke her neck and is quadriplegic. He went to prison. On January 11, 2024 a Boone County jury awarded her $84,000,000 and her husband $75,000,000. Early is an individual with no insurer identified, and his own lawyer said afterward he wished there were actual dollars behind the number.
A Nassau County jury awarded $141.5 million, including $125 million in punitive damages, against K&N Logging after an unvetted driver's 80,000-pound log truck plowed into stopped school-zone traffic and left a young child with permanent brain damage.
A 6-year-old girl was killed in the parking lot of a Slidell Catholic school. The school's after-school Run Club sent children as young as six along a route that crossed the afternoon carpool lane while cars were moving. Her 10-year-old brother watched it happen.
A Wayne County jury found Henry Ford Hospital negligent for a delay of over two hours in executing an ordered emergency C-section, awarding $120.9 million to a Detroit mother and her son, who was left with severe cerebral palsy and requires full-time care.
A St. Louis jury awarded $462 million against trailer maker Wabash National after its defective rear-impact guard failed and allowed a car to slide beneath a trailer on I-55, killing Taron Tailor, 30, and Nicholas Perkins, 23, in 2019.
A Clark County jury awarded $101 million against Progressive, $1 million compensatory and $100 million punitive, after the insurer delayed paying Hal Goldblatt's medical bills for months following a 2022 crosswalk collision that caused a traumatic brain injury.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.