Top Personal Injury Settlements of 2026

After fifteen years of litigation and three failed bankruptcy maneuvers by Johnson and Johnson subsidiaries, Ashcraft and Gerel attorneys R. Bryant McCulley and Michelle Parfitt helped negotiate a global, uncapped settlement of at least $5.5 billion covering approximately 76,000 ovarian-cancer claims.

A Dallas jury awarded $1.1 billion against a trust fund heir who beat a 2-year-old into a permanent vegetative state in 2021, a verdict the firm calls the largest child-assault award in U.S. history.

An Oakland County jury awarded $896.5 million to a young boy who was struck by a prototype test car during a student field trip at a Continental test track, reported as the largest verdict in Michigan history. The award is pre-appeal: post-trial motions are pending, Continental never made a settlement offer, and the amount could still be reduced.

A grade-school boy suffered a traumatic brain injury, a fractured skull and broken bones in July 2023 when a prototype Ford Mustang Dark Horse spun out during a demonstration at Continental Automotive Systems' Auburn Hills, Michigan test track and struck children watching from behind a guardrail. Continental conceded liability for the child's injuries but made no settlement offer, so the case was tried to an Oakland County jury on damages alone. At the end of a three-week trial in July 2026 the jury returned $896,467,970, reported by Courtroom View Network as the largest single-plaintiff personal injury verdict in Michigan history. Separate juries later heard the father's own bystander claim and the claim of the second boy hurt at the guardrail.

A Starr County jury unanimously awarded more than $1.6 billion combined to the families of two workers killed in a 2023 explosion at the Pecos Liquids Handling Facility, with $812 million going to the Garcia Peña family and roughly $809 million to the Alaffa family, finding owner Upton Assets, LLC grossly negligent, though the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy about two weeks before the verdict and collection remains uncertain.

A jury found the owners of the Park Social bar liable for a 2017 staircase fall that left a 57-year-old patron a partial quadriplegic, returning a $644,751,855 premises-liability verdict that the defendants have appealed to Florida's Sixth District Court of Appeal.

A Detroit federal jury awarded former Michigan inmate Kohchise Jackson $307.6 million after the state's for-profit prison health contractor refused to pay for the $919 surgery that would have reversed his colostomy.

A San Patricio County jury awarded $198.2 million to Kristene Chapa, who was kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and shot in the head at a public park in 2012, with the verdict holding her convicted attacker, his father, and their family pharmacy jointly liable.

A Los Angeles County jury ordered Rebecca Grossman and former Major League pitcher Scott Erickson to pay $198.17 million for the deaths of two brothers, ages 11 and 8, struck in a marked crosswalk near their home.

A Los Angeles jury awarded $198.17 million to the Iskander family after two young brothers were struck and killed in a Westlake Village crosswalk, with Nick Movagar of M&Y Personal Injury Lawyers serving as co-counsel alongside Brian Panish.

After a Westchester jury found Metro-North 71% at fault for the 2015 Valhalla grade-crossing disaster, a settlement exceeding $182 million resolved the claims of roughly 30 victims and their families.

A Pierce County jury awarded $130 million against the State of Washington and a South Hill daycare over the death of a 2-year-old girl who died of blunt force trauma in March 2022 after the state's child welfare agency returned her to a home where her abuser remained present and daycare staff failed to report visible injuries they had seen. After a five-week trial the jury found the Washington State Department of Children, Youth and Families 90% at fault and Love and Laughter Learning Centers, Inc. 10% at fault. Of that total, $52 million was awarded individually to the girl's estate, with the remainder split among four other family beneficiaries, and the jury returned a further $10 million against the mother and her boyfriend. News accounts described it as the largest verdict of its kind in Washington state history. Ray Dearie of Dearie Law Group represented the family.

A Philadelphia jury awarded $108.6 million to a boy who suffered permanent brain damage during a December 2018 forceps delivery at Einstein Medical Center, in a case tried by Gilman & Bedigian against Jefferson Health. Jefferson has vowed to appeal, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is already reviewing the same liability doctrines in the firm's earlier $183 million Penn Medicine verdict, so the award is far from final.

An El Paso jury returned a $104 million verdict against Mesilla Valley Transportation after its driver fell asleep on I-40 in Oklahoma and crashed into a disabled truck, killing Orlando Robles, 38, who was sleeping in the sleeper berth.

Ohio State University agreed to pay $100 million to 279 of 280 remaining plaintiffs who sued the university over decades of sexual abuse by former team physician Dr. Richard Strauss; Estey and Bomberger was among co-counsel firms representing survivors.

A Nassau County jury awarded $96,906,004 to a woman who suffered catastrophic brain injuries at age 15 at an intersection the county had been warned about for years, making it the second-largest verdict in Nassau County history.

On December 14, 2019 Emily Gaines, an 18-year-old Moore High School senior, was driving to take the ACT when Sgt. Kyle Lloyd of the Moore Police Department, off duty and rushing a key to another officer's patrol car for a department event, hit her broadside at 95 to 100 mph in a 50 zone. She died at the scene. On April 1, 2026 a federal jury returned $126,000,000. The court entered $90,000,000 against Lloyd, who is in prison, and cut the $36,000,000 against the City to $125,000 under Oklahoma's Governmental Tort Claims Act.

On December 14, 2019 Emily Gaines, an 18-year-old Moore High School senior, was driving to take the ACT when Sgt. Kyle Lloyd of the Moore Police Department, off duty and rushing a key to another officer's patrol car for a department event, hit her broadside at 95 to 100 mph in a 50 zone. She died at the scene. On April 1, 2026 a federal jury returned $126,000,000. The court entered $90,000,000 against Lloyd, who is in prison, and cut the $36,000,000 against the City to $125,000 under Oklahoma's Governmental Tort Claims Act.

A retrial jury in Utah's Fourth District Court awarded $81 million against Beacon Roofing Supply after one of its trucks struck and killed a 12-year-old boy who was crossing legally in a marked crosswalk.

In 2019 a rented temporary pipe system failed at a Tyson Farms chicken rendering plant in Hanceville, and roughly 220,000 gallons of rendering wastewater went into the Mulberry Fork of the Black Warrior River. Mark Griffin, a boat repairman working on the water downriver in Dora, fell ill and was eventually diagnosed with necrotizing fasciitis.

In 2019 a rented temporary pipe system failed at a Tyson Farms chicken rendering plant in Hanceville, and roughly 220,000 gallons of rendering wastewater went into the Mulberry Fork of the Black Warrior River. Mark Griffin, a boat repairman working on the water downriver in Dora, fell ill and was eventually diagnosed with necrotizing fasciitis.

On Halloween night 2021 Season Dow's car ran out of gas on Interstate 15 in Orem and she stopped on the shoulder with her hazard lights on. Kesley Pope, 22, driving her father's uninsured truck at about twice the legal blood alcohol limit, drove straight into it. Season Dow died at the scene and her 16-year-old son died in hospital. Pope is in prison. In June 2026, after a two-day civil trial, Judge Derek Pullan ordered her to pay the family $60,000,000.

Clifford Law Offices secured a $60 million settlement for Sarah Grasser, 31, left paraplegic when another driver swerved to avoid a deep pothole in an I-55 work zone and struck her car, rolling it into a ditch.

A Los Angeles County jury found Bill Cosby liable for drugging and sexually assaulting Donna Motsinger in 1972 and awarded her $59.25 million, including $40 million in punitive damages, the largest civil judgment Cosby has faced.