Top Personal Injury Settlements of 2024
The largest personal injury settlements from 2024, nationwide for one client or family, ranked by amount. Each links to the full story, the firm, and the record behind the number.
- $45 millionSettlement
$45 Million Settlement for Teen Catastrophically Brain-Injured in Chicago Police-Chase Crash
A $45 million payout for 15-year-old Nathen Jones, left unable to walk, speak, or feed himself after Chicago officers chased a car over a minor traffic stop, believed to be the largest the city has ever paid for a police-pursuit crash.
Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard P.C.2024 · Chicago, IL (City Council-approved settlement)Read the full story → - $44 millionSettlement
Construction Worker Left Without Oxygen for 20 Minutes After Debris Chute Collapse Wins $44 Million Settlement
Arian Hila, 48, suffered catastrophic traumatic brain injury at a Tappan, New York demolition site in February 2018 when a debris chute broke free and crushed him, leaving him without oxygen for nearly 20 minutes; a $44 million settlement was reached seven days into a 2024 jury trial.
Brandon J. Broderick, Personal Injury Attorney at Law2024 · New York State Supreme Court, Rockland County (New City, NY); Justice Sherri EisenpressRead the full story → - $32.5 millionSettlement
$32.5 Million Settlement for Boy Left with Severe Brain Injury After Reading Hospital Birth
Ross Feller Casey secured a $32.5 million settlement against Reading Hospital after its labor and delivery team failed to recognize signs of intra-amniotic infection and delayed a C-section, leaving a boy born in 2018 with permanent hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy.
- $32.5 millionSettlement
$32.5 Million Settlement for Widow and Four Daughters of Army Veteran Killed When His Car Wedged Under a Tyson Foods Trailer
The widow and four daughters of Christopher Crump, a 32-year-old Army veteran, received $32.5 million after his car became trapped under a Tyson Foods tractor-trailer with defective lighting in the pre-dawn darkness, a result reported as Georgia's largest single-plaintiff pre-trial wrongful death settlement at the time.
- $30 millionSettlement
$30 Million Settlement for Odessa Woman After Hunt Oil Employee Hit Her Head-On While Impaired
Barbara Dalby, an Odessa proposal specialist and mother of three, secured a $30 million settlement against Hunt Oil after one of the company's intoxicated employees struck her head-on in 2019, leaving her with permanent spinal injuries and unable to work.
- $27 millionSettlement
Mother of Kansas City Shooting Victim Recovers $27 Million From Commercial Property Owner
A woman sued a commercial property owner for wrongful death after her child was shot and killed on the property in Kansas City, alleging the landowner had failed to provide adequate security measures and precautions. The case was handled under a confidentiality agreement that keeps the parties' identities and the property's location out of the public record. It was resolved in Jackson County Circuit Court on May 31, 2024, under the caption Confidential v. Confidential, for $27,000,000. Missouri Lawyers Media, which reported the settlement and reached plaintiff's counsel for comment, later listed it as the top settlement in its Top Verdicts and Settlements roundup for 2024.
After trial: Case name, decedent and defendant withheld under a confidentiality agreement.
Ketchmark & McCreight, P.C.2024 · Jackson County Circuit Court, Missouri (case caption confidential)Read the full story → - $26 millionSettlement
$26 Million Settlement for Toddler Burned in Over-Chlorinated Resort Pool
Kenneth Berger secured a $26 million settlement for the family of a three-year-old who suffered severe chemical burns at Caribbean Resort and Villas in Myrtle Beach after a pool employee falsified chlorine records for years.
Kenneth Berger2024 · U.S. District Court, District of South Carolina (Horry County)Read the full story → - $18 millionSettlementPaid
Tour Photographer Crushed by a Runaway Forklift After a Green Day Concert Settles for $18 Million Seven Days Into Trial
Jake Chamseddine, a photographer working Green Day's Hella Mega Tour, was leaving Citizens Bank Park after the August 2021 Philadelphia show when a stagehand jumped off a moving forklift without setting the parking brake. The unmanned machine rolled down an exit ramp and crushed him against a concrete and metal post, lacerating his femoral artery and breaking his pelvis, femur, and lower back. He sued the Phillies, Live Nation, staging contractor Tri-State Stage Labor, and the forklift driver. After seven days of trial before Judge Caroline Turner, the defendants settled for $18 million on November 1, 2024, with Live Nation and Tri-State paying most of it.
After trial: Settled during trial on November 1, 2024. Live Nation and Tri-State Stage Labor are reported to be paying the majority, with the Phillies and other parties covering the remainder; the payers are institutions and insured contractors, which is why the row is tagged paid.
Stampone, O'Brien, Dilsheimer, Holloway2024 · Philadelphia County Court of Common PleasRead the full story → - $16 millionSettlementPaid
Seattle Public Schools Pays $16 Million Over Garfield Coach Abuse
Seattle Public Schools agreed to pay $16 million in October 2024 to settle a lawsuit from a former Garfield High School student who said two coaches sexually abused her over several years while the district failed to intervene. The suit named volunteer coach Walter Jones, who had been barred from district employment yet was allowed to coach anyway, and assistant coach Marvin Hall, who continued an abusive relationship with her into her college years. It is the largest tort settlement in the district's history, funded mostly through the district's insurance pool. Both coaches were separately prosecuted in King County Superior Court: Hall pleaded guilty to sexual misconduct with a minor in 2025, and Jones's child rape trial ended in a hung jury and a mistrial in December 2025. Paul Sewell and Tomas Gahan of Peterson Wampold Rosato Feldman Luna represented the former student.
After trial: This is a negotiated settlement, not a court judgment, so no appeal applies to the civil claim. Seattle Public Schools pays $500,000 of the $16 million directly, with the remainder covered by the Washington Schools Risk Management Pool, the district's insurer.
Peterson Wampold Rosato Feldman Luna2024 · King County Superior Court, Seattle, WARead the full story → - $10.5 millionSettlement
$10.5 Million Settlement After Commercial Driver Kills Two Teens in Head-On Collision
A commercial truck driver crossed the center line on a Buchanan County road in July 2022, killing two teenagers and seriously injuring a third young passenger; five plaintiff families reached a $10.5 million global settlement in January 2024.
- $10 millionSettlement
Tractor-Trailer Lane Change on I-95 Kills Retired Veteran; Family Settles for $10 Million
A tractor-trailer drifted into a retired 20-year veteran's lane on Interstate 95 North and killed him, and Marks & Harrison recovered $10 million for his family before any lawsuit was filed.
- $9.5 millionSettlement
$9.5 Million Settlement After Tripler Army Hospital Surgeons Reattached Intestine Backward, Triggering Locked-In Syndrome and Death
A 31-year-old Army wife died from sepsis six weeks after surgeons at Tripler Army Medical Center reattached her small intestine backward during a gastric bypass, and the U.S. government agreed to pay her family $9.5 million.
- $7.6 millionSettlement
$7.6 Million Settlement for Army Officer Injured in Three-Vehicle I-64 Crash After Tractor-Trailer Left Pickup Blocking the Lane
Allen, Allen, Allen and Allen secured a $7.6 million settlement for a U.S. Army logistics officer who suffered life-threatening injuries after colliding with a disabled pickup truck that a tractor-trailer had left blocking Interstate 64 at 3:30 in the morning.
Allen Allen Allen & Allen2024 · Virginia state court (removed to federal court, then remanded; settled in mediation)Read the full story → - $7 millionSettlement
Luna County Pays $7 Million After Deputy Driving 130 MPH Kills 14-Month-Old
Luna County agreed to a $7 million settlement after a sheriff's deputy driving more than 130 mph T-boned a family's car on a rural New Mexico highway, killing a 14-month-old boy and severely injuring his mother.
- $6 millionSettlementPaid
Family Reaches $6 Million Settlement After Pretrial Detainee Dies of Malnutrition in Arkansas Jail
Larry Price Jr. spent just over a year in the Sebastian County, Arkansas jail awaiting trial on a terroristic threatening charge he could not make $1,000 bail on, and was found dead in his cell on August 29, 2021. He weighed 185 pounds when he was booked, and paramedics who responded to his death estimated his weight at about 90 pounds; the Arkansas State Crime Laboratory listed the cause of death as acute dehydration and malnutrition. His family's federal lawsuit alleged that Sebastian County and its jail medical contractor, Turn Key Health Clinics, LLC, ignored his deteriorating mental and physical condition, including discontinuing his psychiatric medication and failing to intervene as he ate and drank less over months in custody. Represented by Erik Heipt and Edwin Budge of Budge & Heipt, the family settled with both defendants in 2024 for $6 million, split evenly between the county and Turn Key. The county prosecutor filed no criminal charges over the death, and the case settled before trial with no ruling on liability.
After trial: The case settled before trial, so there was no jury verdict, judgment, or appeal to track. Sebastian County's $3 million share was paid through a public appropriation from its Justice Facilities Capital Fund, with $350,000 contributed by the county's risk management carrier, after the Quorum Court approved the settlement on August 20, 2024.
Budge & Heipt, PLLC2024 · U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas, Case No. 2:23-cv-02008Read the full story → - $5.5 millionSettlement
CYFD Pays $5.5 Million After Agency Placed Girl With Abusive Father Who Killed Her
New Mexico's child welfare agency agreed to a $5.5 million federal civil rights settlement after caseworkers placed an eight-year-old girl with her father, who then beat her to death, despite a documented history of abuse allegations against him.
Davis Kelin Law Firm LLC2024 · U.S. District Court, District of New Mexico (federal)Read the full story → - $4.05 millionSettlementPaid
$4.05 Million From Maricopa County After a Man in Mental Health Crisis Was Restrained Face-Down and Left Unattended in a Jail Cell
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors approved a $4,050,000 settlement with the family of Akeem Terrell, a 31-year-old man who died in a county jail cell on New Year's Day 2021 after Phoenix police and sheriff's detention officers restrained him face-down and then left him motionless on the floor without checking on him.
After trial: This settlement resolves the claims against Maricopa County only. The City of Phoenix separately settled its own portion of the case for $800,000; the two payments involved different defendants and different conduct and should not be combined into a single figure.
- $3.1 millionSettlement
Missouri School District Settles for $3.1 Million After Hiring a Convicted Sex Offender as Bus Driver
On April 27 and 28, 2023, a bus driver for the Crawford County R-1 School District in rural Missouri molested a female student under the age of 12 on his route, and the bus's surveillance cameras recorded it. The driver, James H. Philpot, had a California record going back more than fifty years, including a 1968 indecent exposure charge and a charge of assault with intent to rape, yet the district hired him in 2021. Philpot pleaded guilty on February 5, 2024, to one count of molesting a child under 12 and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Rather than sue, the family filed a charge with the Missouri Commission on Human Rights, and the district agreed in April 2024 to pay $3.1 million, settling before the commission issued a right-to-sue letter and before any lawsuit was filed. The girl's attorney, Grant Boyd, said the evidence he reviewed showed the district knew of Philpot's prior sex offense convictions, and that the family had been told the district's screening looked back only 20 to 25 years.
- $3 millionSettlement
$3 Million Settlement After Garbage Truck Runs Red Light, Kills Charlotte Driver
A commercial garbage truck driver ran a red light and struck a Charlotte resident's vehicle on November 30, 2022, causing fatal blunt force trauma; the estate recovered $3 million at the combined policy limits of the driver and waste company.
- $3 millionSettlement
$3 Million Settlement After Interstate Rear-End Crash Ejects Stranded Driver
A 22-year-old worker creeping along a West Virginia interstate on a flat tire was rear-ended and thrown from his vehicle, and Marks & Harrison resolved the case for $3 million.
All 2024 verdicts and settlements
163 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 while ExxonMobil's appeal remains pending.
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.
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.
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.
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.
John Foy & Associates was one of about a dozen co-counsel firms in the $162 million settlement for victims of a 2021 I-85 van rollover and fire in Gwinnett County that killed seven women from a sober living home.
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 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 found trailer manufacturer Wabash National 65 percent at fault and awarded $462 million, most of it punitive, after a defective rear underride guard let a car slide beneath a trailer and kill two young fathers; a judge later cut the total to about $119.5 million.
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.
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.
A federal jury awarded $98.65 million to the family and estate of Botham Jean after finding that former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger used excessive force and violated his constitutional rights when she entered his apartment and shot him in 2018.
On June 17, 2024, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury unanimously awarded $900 million, $100 million compensatory and $800 million punitive, to a former employee of Alkiviades "Alki" David's companies who was sexually harassed and raped by him between 2016 and 2019. Liability had already been established before trial, so the jury sat only on damages, and the defense table was empty. In September 2024 the trial judge ruled that the award shocked the conscience and conditionally granted a new trial unless the plaintiff accepted $90 million, $10 million compensatory plus $80 million punitive. David filed a notice of appeal at the end of September 2024 and has said publicly that none of the women who have won verdicts against him will ever be paid.
A Philadelphia jury awarded William Melissen $78 million, including $75 million in punitive damages, after finding that Monsanto's Roundup weed killer was a cause of his non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Kline & Specter, with co-counsel Arnold & Itkin, tried the case, the sixth Roundup trial heard by a Philadelphia jury and the fourth to go against the company.
A Cook County jury awarded $75,859,000 to a baby girl left with permanent brain damage and physical injuries after doctors needlessly turned her during a twin delivery at the University of Chicago Medical Center.
A Wayne County jury awarded $75 million against Nicholas Remington, who gave 21-year-old Denis Preka a fatal dose of MDMA disguised as Adderall, in what reporters described as Michigan's largest verdict for a single death.
A Manhattan jury awarded $72.5 million on February 22, 2024 to Aurora Beauchamp, a stage 4 cancer patient who was struck in a Lower East Side crosswalk by an MTA bus and dragged roughly 20 feet before it came to rest on her legs, crushing her pelvis and paralyzing her left leg, in what was widely reported as potentially the largest pedestrian knockdown verdict against the MTA. The money has not been paid: the transit defendants appealed after judgment was entered in May 2025, the Appellate Division denied the Beauchamps' bid to fast-track the briefing in December 2025, and the appeal remains pending.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.