Top Individual Alabama Personal Injury Verdicts and Settlements
The 10 largest individual personal injury results in Alabama on record here, ranked by amount: one client's, one family's, or one incident's recovery, never a pooled fund. Each links to the full story, the firm, and the record behind the number.
Browse personal injury lawyers in Alabama →- $160 millionVerdictProduct Liability
$160 Million Verdict Against Daimler Over a Truck Cab Design Left Unchanged for Nearly 30 Years
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.
After trial: Daimler said it would appeal. No appellate outcome has been reported, so this remains a jury verdict rather than a collected judgment.
- $151.8 millionVerdictProduct Liability
$151.8 Million Verdict for Paralyzed Man After 1998 Ford Explorer Rollover
A Dallas County, Alabama jury awarded Travaris Smith $151.8 million after a 1998 Ford Explorer rolled twice and severed his spinal cord, finding Ford failed its own safety standards and destroyed test data to conceal the defect.
- $70 millionVerdictReduced after trialPersonal Injury
220,000 Gallons of Chicken Rendering Waste Went Into the River That Supplies the County's Drinking Water. The Boat Repairman Who Worked In It Developed a Flesh Eating Infection.
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.
After trial: This verdict is recent and its appellate fate is open. The jury returned $70 million on March 27, 2026 in Walker County Circuit Court after a four-week trial, on wantonness against Tyson Farms and negligence against HydraService. Tyson Foods said publicly that it respects the decision but is disappointed and that the evidence showed the incident did not cause Griffin's injuries; it did not rule out an appeal, and as of our last check nothing had been filed. Treat the figure as a jury verdict, not as money received. On Alabama's caps: the punitive damages limits in Ala. Code § 6-11-21 are the ones that would ordinarily matter at this scale, and the statute's own terms exclude actions for physical injury and wrongful death from those limits, so a bodily-injury verdict of this size is not cut by that section. Alabama caps nothing else applicable here and no public entity was a defendant. What we have not been able to establish from the available reporting is how the $70 million divides between compensatory and punitive damages, or how it is apportioned between the two defendants; if a punitive component were ever held subject to a limit, that split would matter, and we note the gap rather than assume the answer.
- $50 millionVerdictMedical Malpractice
$50 Million Verdict After a Cardiologist Sent a Patient Home the Night He Died
A Mobile County jury awarded the family of Dan Haas $50 million after a 13-day trial, finding that cardiologist Dr. John Galla and his practice mismanaged Haas's cardiac symptoms and sent him home the night he died rather than admitting him to the hospital.
After trial: The verdict was returned in March 2026 and is too recent for any appeal to have been resolved. No appellate outcome has been reported.
Cunningham Bounds, LLC2026 · Mobile County Circuit Court, Alabama (Judge Ben Brooks)Read the full story → - $30 millionVerdictMedical Malpractice
$30 Million Verdict After a Trauma Surgeon Started a Second Elective Surgery While a Gunshot Patient Waited to Bleed to Death
A Tuscaloosa County jury awarded the family of Johnny Terrell Sledge $30 million after finding that the on-call trauma surgeon at DCH Regional Medical Center started a second elective operation instead of treating a gunshot wound, leaving Sledge to bleed to death in the emergency room over roughly two and a half hours.
After trial: No appeal of the verdict was found in public reporting or on the firm's own case summary.
- $18 millionVerdictCar Accidents
Jefferson County Jury Awards $18 Million to Afghanistan Combat Veteran Struck on I-22 Shoulder After Insurer Offered $12,500
Alexander Shunnarah Trial Attorneys took U.S. Army veteran Zachary Lucas's case to trial after Progressive offered $12,500 for a crash that fractured his skull and left him with permanent brain damage. On November 7, 2019, a Jefferson County jury unanimously awarded $18 million.
Alexander Shunnarah Trial Attorneys2019 · Jefferson County Circuit Court, AlabamaRead the full story → - $16 millionVerdictMedical Malpractice
$16 Million Verdict After a Hospital's Natural Birth Advertising Did Not Match the Restrained Delivery a Mother Actually Received
A Jefferson County jury awarded Caroline and J.T. Malatesta $16 million, finding that Brookwood Medical Center committed medical negligence and reckless fraud when the natural-birth experience its advertising promised gave way to a delivery in which Caroline was physically restrained, leaving her with permanent nerve damage.
After trial: No appeal of the verdict was found in public reporting.
- $15 millionVerdictWrongful Death
$15 Million Verdict After a Paramedic Put in Earbuds and Fell Asleep While a Cardiac Patient He Was Supposed to Be Monitoring Called for Help
A Limestone County jury awarded Gloria Owen $15 million after finding that a HEMSI ambulance crew, including a paramedic with an undisclosed history of drug use who fell asleep instead of monitoring her husband, failed to respond as Robert Owen suffered a heart attack during a routine hospital-to-hospital transfer.
After trial: HEMSI publicly stated it would not appeal the verdict.
- $15 millionVerdictWrongful Death
Montgomery Jury Awards Unanimous $15 Million Over Death of 9-Year-Old in Alabama DHR Custody Whose Sickle Cell Crisis Went Untreated
Alexander Shunnarah Trial Attorneys' Andrew Moak, with co-counsel from Turnbull, Holcomb & LeMoine, won a unanimous $15 million wrongful death verdict on August 5, 2022, for the estate of a nine-year-old boy with sickle cell anemia who died in 2013 while in the custody of the Alabama Department of Human Resources. The Montgomery County jury found the boy's DHR caseworker and foster caregiver responsible for delaying the medical care that could have saved him.
Alexander Shunnarah Trial Attorneys2022 · Montgomery County Circuit Court, AlabamaRead the full story → - $15 millionVerdictCar Accidents
$15 Million Dram Shop Verdict Against Bessemer BP Store Upheld by Alabama Supreme Court
A Bessemer jury returned a $15 million verdict against the owners of a BP convenience store that sold beer to an underage driver whose vehicle struck a tree, killing a 13-year-old passenger and injuring three others in May 2007.
Hare Wynn Newell & Newton2013 · Circuit Court, Jefferson County (Bessemer Division), Alabama; affirmed by Alabama Supreme Court (Nov 2015)Read the full story →
All Alabama verdicts and settlements
30 results, largest first
A Montgomery jury returned an $11.9 billion verdict against ExxonMobil in 2003 after finding the company fraudulently underpaid Alabama on natural gas royalties from Mobile Bay state leases, though the Alabama Supreme Court later reversed the fraud count and punitive damages, leaving compensatory damages only.
A Jefferson County bench trial ended in a $2.88 billion judgment against former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy for orchestrating an accounting fraud that inflated the company's reported earnings by $2.6 billion over six years.
Aaron Podhurst served on the Plaintiffs' Steering Committee in the 13-year antitrust class action against the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, which ended in a $2.8 billion settlement for more than 3.3 million healthcare providers.
Monsanto and its chemical spinoff Solutia agreed in August 2003 to pay $700 million to resolve claims from more than 21,000 Anniston, Alabama residents who were exposed to polychlorinated biphenyls the company manufactured and dumped near their homes for nearly four decades.
A class action filed in 2002 on behalf of roughly 400,000 residents across six north Alabama counties ended in a court-approved $300 million cleanup settlement requiring 3M and co-defendants to remediate PFAS contamination throughout the Tennessee River watershed.
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 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.
A Dallas County, Alabama jury awarded Travaris Smith $151.8 million after a 1998 Ford Explorer rolled twice and severed his spinal cord, finding Ford failed its own safety standards and destroyed test data to conceal the defect.
Hare Wynn secured a $100 million cash settlement from UBS on behalf of HealthSouth derivative stockholder plaintiffs, resolving claims that the investment bank aided and abetted one of the largest accounting frauds in American corporate history.
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.
A federal jury in Montgomery awarded $64.1 million to Lucky Palace LLC and 15 Macon County charities after finding VictoryLand owner Milton McGregor conspired to freeze out a competing electronic bingo operation.
A Mobile County jury awarded the family of Dan Haas $50 million after a 13-day trial, finding that cardiologist Dr. John Galla and his practice mismanaged Haas's cardiac symptoms and sent him home the night he died rather than admitting him to the hospital.
A Tuscaloosa County jury awarded the family of Johnny Terrell Sledge $30 million after finding that the on-call trauma surgeon at DCH Regional Medical Center started a second elective operation instead of treating a gunshot wound, leaving Sledge to bleed to death in the emergency room over roughly two and a half hours.
Alexander Shunnarah Trial Attorneys took U.S. Army veteran Zachary Lucas's case to trial after Progressive offered $12,500 for a crash that fractured his skull and left him with permanent brain damage. On November 7, 2019, a Jefferson County jury unanimously awarded $18 million.
A Jefferson County jury awarded Caroline and J.T. Malatesta $16 million, finding that Brookwood Medical Center committed medical negligence and reckless fraud when the natural-birth experience its advertising promised gave way to a delivery in which Caroline was physically restrained, leaving her with permanent nerve damage.
A Limestone County jury awarded Gloria Owen $15 million after finding that a HEMSI ambulance crew, including a paramedic with an undisclosed history of drug use who fell asleep instead of monitoring her husband, failed to respond as Robert Owen suffered a heart attack during a routine hospital-to-hospital transfer.
Alexander Shunnarah Trial Attorneys' Andrew Moak, with co-counsel from Turnbull, Holcomb & LeMoine, won a unanimous $15 million wrongful death verdict on August 5, 2022, for the estate of a nine-year-old boy with sickle cell anemia who died in 2013 while in the custody of the Alabama Department of Human Resources. The Montgomery County jury found the boy's DHR caseworker and foster caregiver responsible for delaying the medical care that could have saved him.
A Bessemer jury returned a $15 million verdict against the owners of a BP convenience store that sold beer to an underage driver whose vehicle struck a tree, killing a 13-year-old passenger and injuring three others in May 2007.
Alexander Shunnarah Trial Attorneys represented ten of the fifteen passengers who sued the Birmingham-Jefferson County Transit Authority after a MAX Transit bus driver lost consciousness and overturned a loaded bus into a ravine in Fairfield, Alabama. On December 11, 2017, a Jefferson County jury awarded $12 million, including $6 million in punitive damages, after hearing that the authority had kept the driver behind the wheel despite two prior fainting episodes.
A Jefferson County jury awarded $10 million to Sheriff's Deputy Aimee Jo Brasher after Hueytown Police Officer David McIntosh allowed his narcotics dog, Rocco, to run uncontrolled and unmuzzled during a May 2021 training exercise, mauling her face and body.
A Mobile County jury awarded the estate of John West Jr. $35 million in punitive damages after Springhill Memorial Hospital gave him two doses of the opioid Dilaudid following minor thumb surgery and failed to monitor him; the trial court reduced the award to $10 million, and the Alabama Supreme Court affirmed it in 2023 as the largest wrongful death award the court has ever upheld.
A Birmingham jury awarded $10 million to the family of Angela McCall, a 34-year-old mother of three struck and killed by a speeding driver who pulled a gun on witnesses and then fled the scene.