Largest Arizona Personal Injury Settlements
The largest personal injury settlements in Arizona for one client or family, ranked by amount. Each links to the full story, the firm, and the record behind the number.
Browse personal injury lawyers in Arizona →- $11.75 millionSettlementCivil Rights
$11.75 Million Settlement After Deputies Twice Walked Past an Unconscious, Beaten 18-Year-Old Inmate
Brian Ortiz, 18, was beaten by another inmate at Maricopa County's Fourth Avenue Jail; deputies saw him unconscious during two separate walkthroughs and did not intervene, and he did not reach a hospital until more than two hours after the assault. Maricopa County settled the resulting civil rights lawsuit for $11.75 million.
After trial: The case settled in 2022 without a trial, so there was no verdict for either side to appeal. No further litigation between the Ortiz family and Maricopa County has been publicly reported.
Scottsdale Injury Lawyers LLC2022 · U.S. District Court for the District of ArizonaRead the full story → - $4.05 millionSettlementPaidCivil Rights
$4.05 Million Settlement for Family of Man Who Died Restrained Face-Down and Left Unattended in 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.
- $2 millionSettlementWrongful Death
$2 Million Settlement With Tucson After Drunk Driver Kills 14-Year-Old Bicyclist on East Broadway
A 14-year-old boy riding his bicycle on East Broadway in Tucson was struck and killed on Jan. 12, 2008 by a drunk driver whose lane ended at a road-widening gap the city had left unfinished. His parents sued the driver, the city and a restaurant that had served her. The family settled with the city in 2012 for $2 million and a public naming, after a 2010 jury trial and an appeal.
After trial: The $40 million jury verdict (February 2010) was cut to $12 million by the trial judge, then sent back for a new trial by the Arizona Court of Appeals in March 2011 because of the parents' fault testimony. The family settled with the city for $2 million in 2012, and the driver's settlement is confidential.
- $575,000SettlementWrongful Death
$575,000 Settlement After Arizona Supreme Court Revived Suit Over Boy, 12, Killed in Peoria
AJ Law, PLC secured a $575,000 settlement from the City of Peoria after the Arizona Supreme Court reversed dismissal of a wrongful death claim brought by the mother of a 12-year-old boy killed at an uncontrolled intersection in 2018.
AJ Law2025 · Maricopa County Superior Court / Arizona Supreme Court (CV-21-0125-PR)Read the full story →
22 results, largest first
Gallagher & Kennedy's Kevin Neal and Kenneth Ralston served as Arizona's outside counsel and secured an $85 million settlement from Google over the deceptive collection of smartphone users' location data.
A Maricopa County jury awarded $58.5 million to families who donated deceased relatives' bodies believing they would be used for medical research, only to learn the Biological Resource Center of Arizona had dismembered and sold the remains to brokers worldwide.
A Maricopa County jury awarded $45.5 million to the family of a 26-year-old woman with severe developmental disabilities who drowned while unsupervised at a Phoenix group home operated by Developmental Systems Inc.
A Maricopa County jury found Banner Health and physician Dr. Laurie Erickson negligent in the 2014 delivery of Greyson Griepentrog, who suffered oxygen deprivation and cerebral palsy after nurses kept increasing his mother's Pitocin dose despite fetal heart tracings showing distress, and returned a $31,550,825 verdict, the largest medical malpractice award in Arizona history.
A Phoenix jury ordered General Motors to pay $17 million for the wrongful death of a Scottsdale woman crushed by her own pickup, a verdict the Arizona Court of Appeals later set aside over a flawed jury instruction.
Brian Ortiz, 18, was beaten by another inmate at Maricopa County's Fourth Avenue Jail; deputies saw him unconscious during two separate walkthroughs and did not intervene, and he did not reach a hospital until more than two hours after the assault. Maricopa County settled the resulting civil rights lawsuit for $11.75 million.
A Maricopa County jury awarded $11 million to the widow of a brain-injured man who died after ingesting plastic bags, condiment packets, and other foreign objects while left unsupervised at a Phoenix assisted living facility.
A Pima County jury awarded a Tucson teenager and his parents $9,143,500 in March 2007 after he was struck at 15 in the crosswalk outside Mountain View High School. The jury put 79 percent of the fault on the driver, 20 percent on Pima County, which operates the road, and 1 percent on the teenager. The county's share came to about $1.8 million. The teen suffered life-threatening injuries, including nearly seven weeks in a coma.
A 19-year-old woman from Oklahoma said her Uber driver raped her during a late-night ride in Arizona in November 2023. On February 5, 2026, a nine-person federal jury in Phoenix found Uber liable under an apparent-agency theory and awarded $8.5 million in compensatory damages. It was the first trial among more than 3,000 consolidated rideshare assault cases. The jury declined punitive damages and rejected the negligence and defective-design claims.
A Pima County jury awarded Sharon King $5.29 million after she lost her arm following shoulder replacement surgery at Oro Valley Hospital, where the operating surgeon mistakenly tied off her axillary artery and the neurovascular bundle supplying the limb.
A Pima County jury awarded Jennifer Johe $5 million on May 23, 2019, in her wrongful death suit against the Sierra Tucson treatment center. Her son Steven, 20, had been admitted in April 2014 for substance addiction and obsessive-compulsive disorder and died of acute drug toxicity within days. Robert Boatman represented the family at trial.
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.
A Pima County jury awarded Amanda Hoover $4 million, sixteen times what Banner-University Medical Center Tucson had offered to settle, after a laparotomy sponge left in her abdomen during a cesarean section worked its way through the wall of her colon.
Gallagher & Kennedy's Robert Boatman and Mark O'Connor served as lead plaintiffs' counsel in the Bard IVC filter MDL, and the first federal bellwether trial in Phoenix ended with a $3.6 million verdict, including $2 million in punitive damages, for Sherr-Una Booker.
A 14-year-old boy riding his bicycle on East Broadway in Tucson was struck and killed on Jan. 12, 2008 by a drunk driver whose lane ended at a road-widening gap the city had left unfinished. His parents sued the driver, the city and a restaurant that had served her. The family settled with the city in 2012 for $2 million and a public naming, after a 2010 jury trial and an appeal.
A Tucson jury awarded $1.5 million to a woman who slipped on water leaking from a BCI Coca-Cola refrigerator at a grocery store, after the bottling company rejected a $150,000 settlement offer.
Tucson Medical Center and a physician gave James Monaco a radioactive phosphorus 32 dose meant for a different condition, raising his leukemia risk and leaving him with post-traumatic stress disorder. A Pima County jury awarded the Monacos $1.5 million. The Arizona Court of Appeals affirmed the verdict and judgment in 1999.
AJ Law, PLC secured a $575,000 settlement from the City of Peoria after the Arizona Supreme Court reversed dismissal of a wrongful death claim brought by the mother of a 12-year-old boy killed at an uncontrolled intersection in 2018.
Louis Hollingsworth secured a $400,000 jury verdict for a Tucson woman who slipped and fell entering a Safeway store, netting $360,000 after a 10% comparative-fault finding against her.
Gallagher & Kennedy's Patrick McGroder and Matthew Boatman represented 12 families of the Granite Mountain Hotshots killed in the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire, settling with the State of Arizona for $50,000 per family plus a list of safety commitments.
A confidential federal civil rights settlement resolved claims that Glendale, Arizona police officers tased a restrained passenger 11 times during a 2017 traffic stop, including once in the genitals while he was handcuffed face-down on summer pavement.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.