Top Individual Arkansas Personal Injury Verdicts and Settlements

A Hand Grenade Was Taped to a Spare Tire Outside His Front Door. The Doctor Who Put It There Is Serving Life, and a Crittenden County Jury Put $122.5 Million on Him.

Dr. Trent Pierce, then chairman of the Arkansas State Medical Board, found a spare tire propped against his car on the morning of 4 February 2009. A hand grenade was duct-taped to it, rigged to fire when the tire was moved. He lost the sight in his left eye and the hearing in his left ear. The man who sent him there was a physician whose prescribing authority the board had revoked.

After trial: Affirmed and uncollected. The Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the $122,500,000 judgment 5 to 2 on 1 December 2016 in Mann v. Pierce, 2016 Ark. 418 (No. CV-15-595), rejecting Mann's attempt to relitigate responsibility after his federal conviction. No cap applied and none could: Article 5, Section 32 of the Arkansas Constitution forbids the legislature from limiting damages, and the state's punitive cap was struck down in Bayer CropScience v. Schafer (2011). Collection is a different matter. Randeep Mann is serving life in federal prison for conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction, and plaintiffs' counsel told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette at the time that he did not expect the Pierces to collect. The only identified asset was Mann's antique gun collection, valued at $1.5 million to $2 million, which a federal judge ordered sold in March 2017. The judgment is real, final and enforceable; the money behind it is not there.

A Healthy 9-Month-Old Was Dropped Off at an Unlicensed Mena Daycare in the Morning. By 4 p.m. He Had Multiple Skull Fractures, and Nobody Has Ever Said How. A Polk County Jury Returned $110 Million.

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.

After trial: The jury verdict was returned on November 19, 2025 after a three-day trial in Polk County Circuit Court. As of September 2026 we find no reported post-trial motion, remittitur or appeal, and no Arkansas appellate record exists for the case. No cap can apply: Article 5, Section 32 of the Arkansas Constitution forbids the legislature from limiting damages, and the punitive cap was struck down in Bayer CropScience v. Schafer (2011). Arkansas apportions fault severally under Ark. Code Ann. 16-55-201, and the jury assigned 80 percent to Wendy Strother and 20 percent to Prairie Pate. The defendants are private individuals who ran an unlicensed home daycare. No source reports insurance coverage or any payment, so the figure here is what the jury awarded, not what the family has received.

$25.4 Million Verdict Against Springdale Motel for Sex Trafficking of a Minor

A Benton County judge awarded $25.4 million, including more than $19 million in punitive damages, against the owner of a Springdale motel after finding it knowingly facilitated the repeated sex trafficking of a girl beginning when she was 14 years old.

$18.5M Verdict for Arkansas Brake Shop Worker Who Died of Mesothelioma from Bendix Asbestos Products

A federal jury in Little Rock awarded $18.5 million after finding Honeywell liable for the mesothelioma death of a central Arkansas brake shop worker who spent years handling Bendix asbestos-containing brake products; Honeywell settled with the family for an undisclosed amount before the verdict was read.

$17.6 Million Default Judgment After 911 Dispatcher Failed to Dispatch Water Rescue in Fatal Pond Emergency

A Pulaski County circuit judge entered a $17.6 million default judgment against a former Little Rock 911 dispatcher who failed to relay a drowning-in-progress call to police and fire water rescue, resulting in the deaths of a mother and her young son over the following two years.

The Dump Truck Had to Enter a 65 mph Highway at an Angle to Get Around a Road Grader. Neither Driver Could See the Other.

Ariel Anderson, 23, was driving home from work on U.S. 67/167 near Jacksonville when a highway contractor's dump truck merged into her lane at about 30 mph. It had entered at an angle to get around a road grader, so neither driver could see the other. The jury found the contractor had not posted the warning signs the project required.

After trial: Arkansas cannot cap damages: Article 5, Section 32 of its constitution forbids it, and the Arkansas Supreme Court struck down the punitive-damages cap in Bayer CropScience v. Schafer (2011). So no statutory reduction was available here. On the appellate path, this check is weaker than a published affirmance and we say so: no Arkansas appellate opinion exists in this case (a CourtListener search of the Arkansas Supreme Court and Court of Appeals returns nothing for these parties) and no follow-up reporting describes a remittitur, new trial or appeal. That is absence of a record rather than an affirmance. Weaver-Bailey remains an operating Arkansas contractor, which makes a post-verdict payment or settlement more likely than a reversal, but the exact resolution is not public.

She Could Not Turn Herself Over in Bed. The Bedsore That Followed Killed Her, and the Chain That Owned the Home Stopped Defending the Case Entirely.

Zelma Grissom was wholly dependent on staff at Hillview Post Acute and Rehabilitation Center to turn her in bed, which has to happen about every two hours to prevent pressure injury. Staff did not. She developed a bedsore, it became infected, and she died of sepsis in May 2018 at 81. Her family won $15,706,166. Not a dollar of it has been paid.

After trial: Final and entirely uncollected. Liability was established by summary judgment in April 2020 after the defendants stopped defending, and damages were fixed by the Pulaski County Circuit Court in February 2023, so this is a judgment rather than a jury verdict. Joseph Schwartz's attempt to overturn it, on grounds of poor health and lack of notice, was unsuccessful and the judgment stands. No cap applies: Article 5, Section 32 of the Arkansas Constitution forbids the legislature from limiting damages, and the punitive cap was struck down in Bayer CropScience v. Schafer (2011). ProPublica reported in 2026 that Schwartz, who pleaded guilty to Medicaid fraud and tax evasion and was subsequently pardoned, has paid none of the Arkansas judgments against him, and that counsel for the affected families lack the asset information needed to enforce. The figure here is what the court ordered, not what the family received.

A Surgeon Operated on the Wrong Side of a Boy's Brain, and Nobody Told His Parents for More Than a Year. A Pulaski County Jury Took Two Hours to Award $20 Million.

A 15-year-old boy went into Arkansas Children's Hospital for surgery to remove the brain tissue causing his seizures. The surgeon opened the wrong side of his head and removed healthy tissue before turning to the correct side. His parents were not told, and learned of it more than a year later during an unrelated examination.

After trial: Final and affirmed. The jury returned $20,000,000 on September 24, 2010. The Pulaski County Circuit Court entered judgment at $11,000,000, which is ProAssurance's policy limit and the ceiling of what Arkansas's direct-action statute, Ark. Code Ann. 23-79-210, can reach against a charitably immune hospital's insurer. This is a coverage ceiling and not a finding that the verdict was excessive; no court held it excessive. In ProAssurance Indemnity Co. v. Metheny, 2012 Ark. 461, 425 S.W.3d 689 (Dec. 13, 2012) the Arkansas Supreme Court rejected the insurer's bid for a new trial and the family's cross-appeal to restore the full $20,000,000, finding no errors in the actions of the circuit court. Arkansas does not cap damages: Article 5, Section 32 of its constitution forbids it.

The Company Admitted Its Driver Ran the Stop Sign. The Only Question Left Was What a Brain Injury Is Worth, and a Jonesboro Jury Said $8.7 Million.

A grocery company's van ran a stop sign onto Arkansas 412 and broadsided Kerry Hogland's car, launching it across three lanes with her three sons inside. She needed brain surgery and has permanent cognitive injury. The company admitted liability, so the nine-day federal trial was about damages alone.

After trial: The figure is the jury's award to Kerry Hogland herself, returned August 20, 2015. The family's gross across all verdict forms was $9,189,790.88, including $475,000 to her eldest son. Liability was admitted before trial, so there was no liability finding to appeal, and no Eighth Circuit or district-court appellate record exists for these parties. Arkansas does not cap damages: Article 5, Section 32 of its constitution forbids it, and the Arkansas Supreme Court struck down the punitive cap in Bayer CropScience v. Schafer (2011). Note that check rests on the absence of an appellate record rather than on an affirmance.

Their Own Staff, Their Residents and the State All Warned Them the Building Was Dangerously Short-Handed. The Jury Added $4.4 Million in Punitive Damages.

Lillie Whitney, 77, lived at Ouachita Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Camden from January 2015 until her death in August 2016. Certified nursing assistants testified that chronic short staffing made adequate care physically impossible, and that the operators had been warned repeatedly by staff, by residents and by the State and did nothing.

After trial: Arkansas cannot cap damages: Article 5, Section 32 of its constitution forbids it, and the Arkansas Supreme Court struck down the punitive cap in Bayer CropScience v. Schafer (2011), so the 2 to 1 punitive ratio stands without statutory adjustment. The case had already survived an interlocutory charitable-immunity appeal: the Arkansas Court of Appeals reversed the denial of summary judgment in 2022 and remanded with instructions to grant immunity if reasonable persons could not differ on the undisputed facts, and the case survived that on remand and went to trial. No post-trial appellate record has appeared in the roughly nineteen months since the verdict, but that is absence of a record rather than an affirmance.