Largest Car Accident Personal Injury Recoveries Confirmed Paid
Personal injury results for car accident cases where the record shows the money was paid, or the defendant is an insurer or institution that pays, ranked by amount.
- $30 millionSettlementPaidTX
Odessa Head-On Crash With a Hunt Oil Pickup Ends in a $30 Million Settlement
Barbara Dalby was in her car on State Highway 191 in Odessa, Texas, on a Friday night in November 2019 when a Ford F-150 owned by Hunt Oil Company crossed into her lane and hit her head on. Her lawyers said the driver, Hunt Oil employee Mikeal Crosson, had drugs and alcohol in his system, and court filings placed him at a bar a few blocks away shortly before the wreck. Dalby needed lumbar fusion surgery for a back injury her lawyers described as permanent, and she has not been able to return to work. She sued Hunt Oil and Crosson in Dallas County's 116th District Court, and an insurance company for Hunt Oil agreed to pay $30 million in late September 2024 with jury selection already underway.
After trial: The $30 million was paid by an insurance company for Hunt Oil rather than by Hunt Oil directly. The Midland Reporter-Telegram added an editor's note saying its first version had missed that point because the press release did not mention it.
Goudarzi & Young, L.L.P.2024 · 116th District Court, Dallas County, Texas (Case No. DC-21-11344)Read the full story → - $18.3 millionVerdictPaidNY
Federal Judge Rejects Race-Based Life Expectancy Tables in $18.3 Million Award for Staten Island Ferry Crash Victim
In October 2003, James McMillan was one of roughly 1,500 passengers on the Staten Island Ferry Andrew J. Barberi when it hit a maintenance pier at close to full speed after its solo pilot blacked out, a crash that killed 11 people and left McMillan a quadriplegic. Liability was already settled by the time his case reached trial, so Judge Jack B. Weinstein tried damages in the Eastern District of New York with an advisory jury, with Torgan & Cooper, P.C. (now Torgan Cooper + Aaron) representing McMillan. The City argued his future medical costs should be figured on race-based life expectancy statistics predicting a shorter life for a Black claimant; Weinstein refused, in the first federal ruling to hold that such statistics cannot be used to calculate damages. His own findings of fact, amended twice, fixed the award at $18.3 million, the largest of the cases brought against the City over the crash, and the City paid it.
After trial: Damages were tried to the court under federal maritime law with an advisory jury whose recommendation was not binding. Judge Weinstein's own findings of fact, amended in November and December 2008, fixed the award at $18.3 million, and that is the figure the court itself used when it later calculated counsel fees.
Torgan Cooper + Aaron, P.C.2008 · U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Brooklyn, NYRead the full story → - $1.58 millionVerdictPaidLA
Jefferson Parish Jury Awards $1.58 Million After Distracted-Driving Rear-End Crash
A Jefferson Parish jury awarded Jasmine Raymond $1,582,399.87 after a company truck driver, distracted by his phone's GPS, rear-ended her on Interstate 10 in 2014 and drove her car into the vehicle ahead, sandwiching it between the two. The 24-year-old plaintiff had no prior back or neck problems before the crash and went through numerous procedures and surgeries over the next two years, ending with an August 2016 diagnosis of a recurrent disc herniation at L4-5 with right leg radiculopathy and a treating physician's opinion that she would need two lumbar fusion surgeries over her lifetime. After both sides rested, the judge granted a directed verdict on liability, so the twelve jurors decided only medical causation and the size of the award. The defendants appealed on evidentiary and damages grounds but withdrew the appeal the day before oral argument, and the Louisiana Fifth Circuit dismissed it without ruling, leaving the full verdict intact.
After trial: Defendants Depositors Insurance Company, Rubber & Specialties, Inc., and Lance M. Cook took a suspensive appeal from the October 11, 2016 judgment, raising four assignments of error: admission of late supplemental expert testimony, denial of a trial continuance and an updated medical examination, insufficient record support for the future medical award, and a request to remand for consideration of La.
- $1.5 millionVerdictPaidNY
72-Year-Old Passenger Thrown From MTA Bus Wins $1.5 Million Verdict
A 72-year-old woman was thrown to the floor of a Queens city bus in April 2012 when the driver pulled away from the curb before she reached her seat, tearing the menisci in her knee and causing spinal and post-concussive injuries. A Supreme Court, Queens County jury found MTA Bus Co. negligent and awarded her $1,500,000 in past and future pain and suffering. The Appellate Division, Second Department affirmed both the liability finding and the damages award in full in 2018. Robert Miklos of Silberstein, Awad & Miklos, P.C. represented her at trial and on appeal.
After trial: MTA Bus Co. appealed both the liability finding and the damages award. The Appellate Division, Second Department affirmed the $1,500,000 judgment in full on July 11, 2018 (2018 NY Slip Op 05134), and no further appeal was found.
Silberstein & Miklos2015 · Supreme Court, Queens County, NY; affirmed, Appellate Division, Second Department (2018)Read the full story → - $1.25 millionSettlementPaidKS
Kansas Driver Settles Stop Sign Failure to Yield Crash for $1.25 Million
A 16-year-old driver stopped at a stop sign on Eisenhower Road in Leavenworth County, Kansas, then pulled into the path of a woman driving 55 mph on the right-of-way road, causing a July 2022 collision. She suffered a concussion, and daily headaches, dizziness, balance deficits and diminished concentration persisted for months despite a negative scan taken the day of the crash, which also exacerbated orthopedic injuries from a prior accident. The suit named the teen driver for failing to yield and the driver's mother for negligent supervision and training. A demand for the defendant's policy limits was made during litigation and accepted, and the case settled in September 2024 for $1.25 million without reaching trial.
After trial: The $1.25 million settlement, reached in September 2024, was a policy-limits recovery: a demand for the defendant's automobile policy limits was made during litigation and accepted, so the payment matched what was available under that coverage rather than a jury's assessment of the claim's full value. The case resolved by settlement before trial, so no appeal occurred.
- $517,350VerdictReduced from $4.5 millionPaidNJ
Essex County Jury Values a Passenger's Five Herniated Discs at $4.5 Million After Her Insurer Offered $25,000, Though the Underinsured-Motorist Policy Capped Her Recovery
Jennifer Burden was a passenger in her sister's car when it was struck by another driver on November 19, 2017, leaving her with herniated discs at five levels of her neck and lower back, foot drop, and headaches. After the at-fault driver's policy was exhausted by settlement, her own carrier, Mid-Century Insurance (Farmers), refused a $300,000 arbitration award and offered $25,000 on her $400,000 underinsured-motorist claim. An Essex County jury in April 2024 found her damages were $4,500,000. The court molded the verdict to $517,350.44, the policy limit plus fees, costs and interest, and the Appellate Division in March 2026 affirmed the dismissal of her bad-faith claim against the insurer.
After trial: The jury verdict was molded to $517,350.44 because the only defendant at trial was the plaintiffs' own underinsured-motorist carrier and the policy limit was $400,000; the judgment is insurer-paid by its nature. The plaintiffs' appeal concerned only the dismissed bad-faith and Insurance Fair Conduct Act claims, which the Appellate Division affirmed on March 13, 2026 (A-0440-24).
Blume Forte Fried Zerres & Molinari, P.C.2024 · Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Essex County, NewarkRead the full story →
179 results, largest first
On December 7, 2021, a Nueces County jury in Corpus Christi returned $1.04 billion in actual damages and $300 billion in exemplary damages, about $301.04 billion in total, against Beer Belly's Sports Bar and its owner for overserving a driver who killed Tamra Kay Kindred, 59, and her 16-year-old granddaughter in a 2017 crash. It was reported as the largest jury verdict ever recorded, and the honest frame is that it was built to be symbolic: the bar had closed in 2019, Texas does not require bars to carry liquor liability insurance, and the family and its lawyers said openly that they expected to recover nothing and sought the number as a public statement against drunk driving. John Flood of Flood Trial Lawyers was lead counsel, with Sico, Hoelscher & Harris LLP as co-counsel; Craig Sico delivered the closing argument that asked jurors to decide how loudly their voice would be heard.
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 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 honest frame: 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.
A Morgan & Morgan trial team won a $120 million Alachua County verdict for Jacob Rodgers, paralyzed at 20 when a Gainesville Regional Utilities driver ran a stop sign and broadsided the pickup he was riding in. After appeals and remittitur cut the judgment to $18.3 million, the case settled for $11 million, most of it paid through a Florida legislative claims bill that became law in 2025.
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.
A Cook County jury found the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority negligent for a 2016 construction zone crash on I-90 that killed one limousine passenger and left Rob Rosá paralyzed from the neck down, awarding Rosá and his spouse just over $104 million on October 9, 2025.
A Clark County jury awarded $101 million against Progressive -- $1 million compensatory and $100 million punitive -- after the insurer delayed paying Hal Goldblatt's medical bills for months following a 2022 crosswalk collision that caused a traumatic brain injury.
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.
A Miami-Dade jury returned a $95 million verdict, among the largest motor-vehicle awards in the history of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit, for the family of a young woman killed and her brother catastrophically injured when a drunk driver traveled the wrong way on I-95 in December 2015 after being overserved at a Miami bar.
Francisco Briones, 21, was turning left on a green light on his way to a 5 a.m. warehouse shift in Oxnard on March 23, 2013, when Christopher Zink, drunk at 0.14 percent, awake for 24 hours and asleep at the wheel, ran a red light at about 50 mph and hit him. Briones' C4-5 vertebrae ruptured and he was paralyzed from the neck down. Zink pleaded guilty to felony DUI causing injury and went to prison for seven years; his insurer, Nationwide, had refused a timely policy-limits demand. On January 22, 2016, a Ventura County jury found Zink 100 percent at fault, found malice, and awarded $125,168,202, half of it punitive damages. The court rejected Zink's Proposition 213 motion to strip the pain-and-suffering award but reduced the judgment post-trial to about $85 million.
A St. Charles County jury awarded $75 million, including $25 million in punitive damages, to the parents of Krystofer Batsell, a 21-year-old killed when a driver fleeing police at more than 100 mph crashed into his car. The defendant is serving a 15-year prison sentence for second-degree murder, and the judgment is effectively uncollectable.
A Boone County jury found that Eaton Asphalt's improper repaving of Richwood Road created the edge drop-off that sent a flatbed truck into Amy Skiba's car, and awarded her three children $74 million.
A Manhattan jury awarded $72.5 million on February 22, 2024 to Aurora Beauchamp, a stage 4 cancer patient who was struck in a Lower East Side crosswalk by an MTA bus and dragged roughly 20 feet before it came to rest on her legs, crushing her pelvis and paralyzing her left leg, in what was widely reported as potentially the largest pedestrian knockdown verdict against the MTA. The money has not been paid: the transit defendants appealed after judgment was entered in May 2025, the Appellate Division denied the Beauchamps' bid to fast-track the briefing in December 2025, and the appeal remains pending.
A Platte County jury returned a record $70 million verdict after an eight-year-old boy died and his six-year-old sister was seriously injured when a distracted driver rear-ended their grandparents' car in a highway construction zone.
A Nueces County jury awarded $67.47 million to Christopher Arnold, paralyzed from the waist down after a Weatherford US oilfield employee rear-ended the vehicle he was riding in on FM 624 near Calallen; a pre-agreed high-low cap limited actual recovery to $9 million.
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 Bexar County jury returned a $59.8 million verdict, later converted to a $60.09 million judgment, for 23-year-old Armando Guerrero III after a drunk driver ran a red light at nearly twice the posted speed limit on Southwest Military Drive.
After a speeding BMW rear-ended a mother and her four children stopped at an Ocala red light, a Marion County jury awarded the family nearly $52 million, reported as the largest verdict in the county's history.
A $45 million payout for 15-year-old Nathen Jones, left unable to walk, speak, or feed himself after Chicago officers chased a car over a minor traffic stop, believed to be the largest the city has ever paid for a police-pursuit crash.
A Broward County jury awarded $43 million to Steadman and Eileen Haase after an 18-year-old drunk driver crossed the median on Rock Island Road in Lauderhill on December 22, 2019, sending his car airborne and crushing the couple's vehicle.
A Limestone County jury awarded $41 million to a married couple who suffered catastrophic injuries when an intoxicated company driver ran a stop sign and struck their pickup truck, holding both the driver and his employer vicariously liable.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.