Top Personal Injury Recoveries Confirmed Paid of 2025
Personal injury results from 2025, nationwide where the record shows the money was paid, or the defendant is an insurer or institution that pays, ranked by amount.
- $60 millionVerdictReduced from $109.5 millionPaid
Bexar County Jury Finds CPS Energy Liable for 2021 San Antonio Home Explosion
A Bexar County jury found CPS Energy responsible for a May 2021 natural gas explosion that destroyed a rental home on San Antonio's southeast side and badly injured a mother and her adult son. The jury returned a $109.5 million verdict, but a pretrial high-low agreement between the parties capped CPS Energy's actual payment at $60 million regardless of the jury's number. Jurors cleared two contractor companies of fault and found the utility solely responsible for failing to maintain aging gas infrastructure. Michael Lyons, Chris Simmons, Chris Carr and Michael Wozniak of Lyons & Simmons represented the family at trial.
After trial: The jury's $109.5 million verdict does not control what CPS Energy pays. A high-low agreement the parties signed before trial capped the utility's exposure at $60 million, and CPS Energy, a city-owned utility, confirmed the agreement publicly after the verdict.
Lyons & Simmons, LLP2025 · Bexar County District Court, San Antonio, Texas (Case No. 2021-CI-18484)Read the full story → - $30 millionSettlementPaid
San Diego Pays $30 Million Over Fatal Police Shooting of a Fleeing Teenager
The Wilson family's 16-year-old son was shot and killed by a San Diego police officer on January 28, 2025, seconds after he ran into the officer's path while fleeing gunfire from another teenager at Santa Fe Depot. His parents sued the City of San Diego and the officer in San Diego Superior Court in June 2025, alleging the officer fired twice into the boy's back without warning, in violation of his civil rights and of department use of force standards. The San Diego City Council voted unanimously on December 9, 2025 to approve a $30 million settlement, with the city paying $5 million and the rest drawn from a public liability fund shared by member municipalities. San Diego attorneys King Aminpour and Michael VanGalio worked the case alongside lead attorney Nicholas Rowley.
After trial: Settlement approved by unanimous vote of the San Diego City Council, with no admission of liability. It is not subject to appeal, and the city has approved and funded it.
- $10.88 millionReduced from $19.1 millionPaid
Trooper Mistook Her Stroke for Drunk Driving, Jury Holds State Liable
Cheryl Rhines pulled onto the shoulder of Route 78 in Newark in October 2017 while having a stroke. A New Jersey State Police trooper with about two years on the job read her slurred speech, facial drooping and inability to stand as intoxication, arrested her, and had her taken to a State Police station instead of a hospital five minutes away, delaying treatment by roughly two and a half hours. An Essex County jury found the state liable in January 2025 and put her total damages at $19.1 million, then attributed 40% of her disability to the stroke itself. After that reduction and an adjustment for disability benefits she had already received, the judgment came to $10,882,432.20, and the trial judge refused to disturb it in April 2025. Dennis M. Donnelly represented Rhines, who has global aphasia and can no longer work.
After trial: Reduced and paid. The $19.1 million damages finding was cut by the 40 percent share attributed to the stroke itself and adjusted for disability benefits, giving a judgment of $10,882,432.20 (Daily Voice, February 2025).
The Donnelly Law Firm2025 · Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Essex County (Judge Thomas Vena; docket ESX-L-580-19)Read the full story → - $6.8 millionSettlementPaid
$6.8 Million Hospital Settlement After a Stillbirth at 31 Weeks and the Hysterectomy That Followed
Kristen Dondero was 31 weeks pregnant and under the care of a maternal-fetal specialist when Hackensack University Medical Center sent her home on September 6, 2018 with decreased fetal movement and early labor symptoms. She returned two days later and learned her son had died in utero; the delivery that followed tore her uterus and ended in an emergency hysterectomy, blood transfusions, and further surgery under an induced coma. After five years of litigation marked by the hospital's sworn denials that any internal review of her care existed, and an Appellate Division ruling that those denials could support a fraudulent concealment claim, HMH Hospitals Corp. agreed on July 1, 2025 to pay Kristen and Andrew Dondero $6.8 million. The case against the obstetrician and his practice continued.
After trial: The $6.8 million is the hospital's share only, agreed on July 1, 2025 on confidential terms, and no appeal is possible from a settlement. Claims against Dr.
Lomurro Munson LLC2025 · Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Bergen CountyRead the full story → - $6.45 millionVerdictReduced from $27.7 millionPaid
$27.7 Million Verdict for Offshore Rigger Killed by a Broken Rope, Paid Out at $6.45 Million
Walter Jackson, 48, was a rigger on an offshore platform 65 miles south of Lake Charles. The crew was lowering sections of corroded firewater pipe when the manila rope holding a 131-pound section broke. He was standing in a landing zone nobody had cleared, and it killed him instantly.
After trial: Paid and satisfied. The $27,707,930 verdict of February 2, 2023 was cut by fault allocation and remittitur, the Fifth Circuit affirmed on March 28, 2025 except for the widow's award, which was reduced on remand, and a Satisfaction of Judgment was filed July 1, 2025.
Arnold & Itkin2025 · U.S. District Court, Western District of Louisiana (Lake Charles)Read the full story → - $4.5 millionSettlementPaid
$4.5 Million Settlement for 14-Year-Old Killed Behind an Overloaded, Underlit Flatbed on Interstate 79
A 14-year-old high school freshman was riding home from a soccer match with her father on Interstate 79 when their vehicle struck the rear of a flatbed semi hauling lumber uphill at 21 mph in the dark. The plaintiffs' case was that the truck should never have been on that road: overloaded by more than 11,000 pounds, inadequately lit, and driven by a man not properly licensed for it.
After trial: Settled and court-approved; final. The $4,500,000 is split $3,000,000 from Quality Woods, Inc. and $1,500,000 from Allegheny Wood Products, Inc.
- $3.13 millionSettlementPaid
Fresno County Settlement for Family of Man Killed by Reserve Deputies at Southwest Fresno Auto Shop
Kenny Mullins, 32, was shot and killed by two reserve Fresno County deputies at a southwest Fresno auto dismantling shop on March 6, 2020. His family sued in federal court, and in August 2025 the judge ruled the civil rights trial against the deputies would proceed. In October 2025 the county agreed to pay $3.125 million to his young daughter and his mother, and the federal court approved the settlement in February 2026.
After trial: The federal court approved the settlement as a minor's compromise on February 18, 2026, and the case was dismissed in April 2026. The payer is Fresno County.
Wagner Jones Kopfman & Artenian2025 · U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, FresnoRead the full story → - $2 millionPaid
$2 Million Judgment for Woman, 19, Who Died in Rolette County Jail Cell Nine Hours After Booking
Lacey Higdem, 19, was found hallucinating in the woods under the influence of methamphetamine and booked into the Rolette County Jail in Rolla, North Dakota on June 3, 2020. She died in her cell roughly nine hours later. Rolette County and two former correctional officers made a $2 million offer of judgment, which was accepted.
After trial: Judgment of $2,000,000 entered in the District of North Dakota after the plaintiff accepted a Rule 68 offer of judgment from Rolette County in April 2025. No post-trial or appellate step remains that could reduce it.
- $1.6 millionPaid
$1.6 Million Judgment for Woman Assaulted by a BIA Officer Who Answered Her Call, Won After Ten Years
In 2015 a woman on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation called authorities because she was worried someone might be drinking and driving. The Bureau of Indian Affairs officer who responded assaulted her. A federal judge fixed damages at $1.6 million in 2020, and after nearly a decade of litigation over whether the United States was responsible, ordered it to pay in 2025.
After trial: Final. A federal judge set damages at $1,600,000 in 2020 but declined to order the United States to pay; after the Montana Supreme Court held in August 2022 that the federal government could be responsible, Judge Molloy ordered the United States to pay after a February 4, 2025 bench trial.
Heenan & Cook Injury and Accident Attorneys2025 · U.S. District Court, District of Montana, Billings (with a certified question answered by the Montana Supreme Court)Read the full story → - $500,000VerdictPaid
Cole County Jury Awards Church Chaperone $500,000 After Charter Bus Crash
A Cole County jury awarded Ronette Schulte $500,000 after the driver of a charter bus carrying her church's youth group fell asleep at the wheel and crashed in 2022. Schulte, an adult chaperone, suffered a nasal injury that left her unable to breathe through her nose for about eight months, reinjured a shoulder that had recently been through rotator cuff surgery, and came away with acute stress disorder from watching the children in her care thrown around the bus. The verdict was returned on April 23, 2025, before Judge Cotton Walker. Cavalier Coaches, Inc. did not dispute that its driver fell asleep, but argued at trial that Schulte's injuries beyond the nasal injury were not caused by the crash.
After trial: Defense counsel moved for a new trial after the April 23, 2025 verdict, arguing seatbelt evidence was improperly admitted. No ruling on that motion has been reported, and no appeal appears in Missouri appellate records as of September 2026.
Clement, Van Ronzelen & Schulte LLC2025 · Cole County Circuit Court, Missouri (Judge Cotton Walker)Read the full story →
All 2025 verdicts and settlements
186 results, largest first
A Clark County jury awarded $3.8 billion against Real Water on March 21, 2025, after finding the Las Vegas alkaline water company liable for poisoning consumers with hydrazine-contaminated product that caused acute liver failure, autoimmune disease, and death.
A federal jury in Columbus, Georgia awarded $30.5 million in compensatory damages and $2.5 billion in punitive damages against Ford Motor Company for the deaths of Herman and Debra Mills, killed when the roof of their 2015 F-250 Super Duty crushed down on them in a rollover. Butler Prather LLP tried the case, with James E. Butler Jr., Ramsey Prather, Daniel Philyaw, and Allison Bailey on the trial team. The honest frame: Ford called the verdict impermissibly extreme, moved for a new trial, and in September 2025 settled this case and the related $1.7 billion Hill case on confidential terms, so the verdict was never collected as awarded.
A Cobb County, Georgia jury found that Monsanto's Roundup caused John Barnes's non-Hodgkin lymphoma and awarded him $2.065 billion, with Arnold & Itkin's Kyle Findley serving as lead trial lawyer.
Anapol Weiss shareholder Kristen Gibbons Feden helped secure $1.6 billion in default verdicts for 104 women sexually abused as children by former Long Island pediatrician Stuart Copperman, one of the largest cumulative civil awards against a single individual in U.S. history.
On October 6, 2025, a Los Angeles County jury ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $966 million to the family of Mae K. Moore, a mother of three who died of mesothelioma in December 2021 at age 88 after decades of using the company's talc-based Baby Powder and Shower to Shower. The award comprised $16 million in compensatory damages and $950 million in punitive damages, reported at the time as the largest talc-mesothelioma verdict ever returned against Johnson & Johnson. On March 13, 2026, the trial judge, Ruth Ann Kwan, vacated the entire $950 million punitive award, finding the malice showing insufficient, while leaving the $16 million compensatory judgment intact. Both sides have said they will appeal. Dean Omar Branham Shirley tried the case for the Moore family, and this page documents it as part of the public record.
A Utah judge entered a $951 million default judgment against Steward Health Care after newly trained nurses, an excessive Pitocin drip, and a delayed C-section at Jordan Valley Medical Center left a newborn permanently brain damaged.
A Bexar County jury awarded roughly $831 million to Blas Mendez Jr., a longtime Seguin ISD special education behavior specialist left partially paralyzed after his motorcycle hit wreckage left in the road by an 18-year-old drunk driver who had been served at Koozies Icehouse & Grill in New Braunfels. Todd A. Hunter of Hunter Trial Law tried the dram shop case with E. Chevo Pastrano and Ginna G. Pastrano of The Pastrano Law Firm. The award was reported as the largest verdict ever returned by a San Antonio jury, and the bar had already closed by the time it came in, so the family is not expected to collect most, if any, of it.
Lewis Butler, a security guard, was shot eight times and killed in November 2023 during an armed robbery at an internet cafe in Havana, Florida. The cafe's operators had not reported a robbery three weeks earlier in which the gun used against him was stolen. In December 2025 a Gadsden County jury awarded his widow $779,389,024, including $550 million for pain and suffering and $225 million for loss of companionship.
A Harris County jury awarded $640 million to the family of David Lester Loree II, a journeyman pipefitter fatally crushed when a top-heavy HVAC unit being lifted by TNT Crane and Rigging overturned in high winds at a Texas A&M University-San Antonio construction site in September 2021.
A federal jury in San Francisco found Google liable for invasion of privacy and intrusion upon seclusion after the company kept collecting data from third-party apps for users who had switched off the Web & App Activity setting. On September 3, 2025, the jury awarded $425,651,947 in compensatory damages and declined to award punitive damages. The award is a single class-wide figure shared by two nationwide classes of about 98 million users, not one person's recovery. The judge refused to set the verdict aside in August 2026, and Google has appealed to the Ninth Circuit.
Jose Valdivia, 25, was building scaffolding at the Phillips 66 refinery in Lake Charles when a co-worker above him lost his grip on a steel scaffold bar. It struck him on the head and spine through a hard hat and full protective equipment. He is in a wheelchair with limited speech. Brock never reported the accident to OSHA.
A 565-foot crawler crane toppled across a Tribeca street in 2016, killing a young mathematician; the case settled for $272.5 million.
A Miami federal jury found Tesla 33% liable for a 2019 Key Largo crash that killed a 22-year-old woman and severely injured her boyfriend, awarding $243 million including $200 million in punitive damages in the first federal trial over a fatal Autopilot accident.
Representing more clergy abuse survivors in the Archdiocese of New Orleans bankruptcy than any other firm, Herman, Katz, Gisleson and Cain helped push a five-year Chapter 11 proceeding to a $230 million settlement confirmed in December 2025, with additional recovery against Travelers Insurance still pending.
A Philadelphia jury found the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania liable for the brain injury a newborn suffered when staff delayed a cesarean section, a $182.7 million verdict that grew to a molded judgment of about $207.6 million, the largest medical malpractice award in Pennsylvania history. Kline & Specter argued and won the appeal, where the Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed the full $207.6 million judgment in July 2025.
A Pinellas County civil jury found Rebecca Schwartz liable for the 2014 murder of her husband, kidney specialist Dr. Steven Schwartz, and awarded his three children $200 million in one of the largest wrongful death verdicts in Florida history.
A Santa Fe jury awarded $190 million to the families of two young people killed and three others seriously injured when an intoxicated View Homes Inc. executive crossed the center line on Highway 213 near Chaparral, New Mexico, on January 17, 2023.
A 20-year-old painter suffered a traumatic brain injury in a 2021 ladder fall in Utah. A Denver jury found his workers' compensation carrier, NorGUARD Insurance, knowingly and unreasonably delayed and denied his care, including inpatient rehabilitation. It awarded $145.26 million, made up of $85.26 million in compensatory and $60 million in punitive damages.
A New York County jury awarded $117 million to William Durbec and his wife Victoria in May 2025, the largest single-plaintiff asbestos verdict in New York State history, after Durbec developed pleural mesothelioma from asbestos-containing fireproofing he breathed during years of sheet metal work at the original World Trade Center.
A Garfield County jury returned a $205 million verdict against Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park and ride manufacturer Soaring Eagle after finding that operators launched the Haunted Mine Drop with a six-year-old girl sitting on top of an unsecured seatbelt, overriding a warning alarm that should have stopped the ride.
On September 16, 2025, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury found Joseph Ruffalo, an 85-year-old former music manager and 1980s film producer, liable for sexual battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress against his former stepdaughter, A.Z., who testified that he abused her from 1991, when she was six, until 2007, when she was 22. The unanimous jury deliberated two hours and forty minutes and awarded $85 million in compensatory damages and $30 million in punitive damages. A.Z. had reported the abuse to police in the United States and Britain without result; Ruffalo was never charged. Her mother was a co-defendant and resolved the claims against her before trial. Ruffalo told the jury he could not pay.
A Clark County jury awarded Timothy Kuhn $114 million after USAA spent years stonewalling his claim from a 2018 rear-end collision it had originally conceded was not his fault.
A Travis County jury found a Wings 'N More restaurant liable for overserving a drunk driver who crashed into a family's car, awarding $112.9 million after a six-year-old girl suffered a traumatic brain injury, cardiac arrest, and the loss of vision in one eye.
On February 16, 2016 Daniel Ryals dropped his healthy 9-month-old son at Wendy Jo Strother's unlicensed in-home daycare in Mena, Arkansas. That afternoon Strother's daughter carried the baby into the local hospital with multiple skull fractures and bleeding in his brain. He is permanently blind and brain-damaged. Strother pleaded no contest to permitting child abuse and got probation. In November 2025 a Polk County jury awarded the family $110,000,000 plus $40,000 in punitive damages.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.