Largest Colorado Personal Injury Verdicts Never Collected

A 20-year-old painter suffered a traumatic brain injury in a 2021 ladder fall in Utah. A Denver jury found his workers' compensation carrier, NorGUARD Insurance, knowingly and unreasonably delayed and denied his care, including inpatient rehabilitation. It awarded $145.26 million, made up of $85.26 million in compensatory and $60 million in punitive damages.

A Garfield County jury returned a $205 million verdict against Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park and ride manufacturer Soaring Eagle after finding that operators launched the Haunted Mine Drop with a six-year-old girl sitting on top of an unsecured seatbelt, overriding a warning alarm that should have stopped the ride.

A Denver jury awarded $67,349,380 in July 2024 after a seven-month-old suffered permanent brain damage when a cardiothoracic surgeon accidentally tied off the infant's aorta during open-heart surgery and the perfusionists failed to detect the resulting loss of blood flow for more than seven hours.

A Larimer County jury returned a $65 million wrongful death verdict in September 2026 for the family of Megan Arneson, a 32-year-old single mother killed on I-25 near Mead in August 2022. A semi hauling an improperly loaded excavator struck an overpass, and falling concrete came through her windshield. The jury found the driver and his employer liable after a five-day trial. Plaintiffs' counsel described it as the largest jury verdict in Larimer County history and the largest in a Colorado trucking crash case.

Chad Hemmat and co-counsel secured a $33 million wrongful death verdict for the mother of a 30-year-old Aurora engineer killed when a driver traveling nearly three times the posted speed limit ran a red light and T-boned his car at an I-225 interchange.

A Weld County jury awarded $27.6 million to a family whose newborn daughter developed E. coli sepsis and meningitis after nursing staff failed to notify a physician despite documented signs of infection, leaving her with permanent brain injury and cerebral palsy.

A Denver jury awarded $26.6 million to two adult siblings whose parents were both killed when a drowsy CWRV Transport driver rear-ended their stopped vehicle at 75 mph on a Colorado highway.

A Denver jury awarded $19.75 million to six bystanders shot by a Denver Police officer who fired into a crowd while pursuing an armed suspect in the LoDo neighborhood in July 2022.

A developmentally disabled man left with a brain injury and quadriplegia after a commercial pickup rear-ended his car won $18,809,431 from a Denver jury in May 2024, ranked the sixth-largest Colorado verdict of the year.

A Colorado jury delivered what was then the state's largest medical malpractice verdict after a four-day-old girl suffered cardiac arrest and permanent brain damage when hospital staff administered an incorrect prostaglandin dose before congenital heart surgery.

A temporary electrical box exploded and electrocuted flooring installer Brian Warembourg, and a Boulder County jury returned a $16 million verdict against the electrical contractor, the largest premises liability award in Colorado history.

A defective frac tank exploded under an Air Force veteran at a Weld County well pad in 2019, and a federal jury in Denver returned $30 million, though Colorado's cap on pain-and-suffering damages later cut roughly $14 million.

A Broomfield County jury found Crested Butte Mountain Resort negligent per se for violating federal chairlift safety standards, awarding a family $12.4 million after their teenage daughter fell 30 feet from a moving ski lift and was permanently paralyzed.

A Las Animas County jury awarded Rhett Ridolfi $11.5 million after finding helmet maker Riddell negligent for failing to warn players about concussion danger, assigning 27 percent of the fault, roughly $3.1 million, to the company.

A federal jury awarded Georgina Perez $55.5 million after a Sunbeam Express Crock Multi-Cooker lid blew off and caused severe burns; the court later reduced the award to roughly $9.1 million under Colorado's statutory damages cap.

A Denver jury awarded electrician Jon Valaer $8.4 million after contractor Q3 left three energized wires hidden inside a power pedestal that shocked him and left him with complex regional pain syndrome.

A Denver jury awarded $7,110,624 to Deysi Cari after she was struck by a vehicle while crossing a marked crosswalk with the right-of-way, with the defendant having admitted liability before trial.

A federal jury awarded Jody Blatchley, former coach of New Zealand's Olympic snowboard team, $6.3 million after nurses at St. Anthony Summit Medical Center failed to recognize and report compartment syndrome for three days following his tibial surgery, leaving him with permanent foot drop and confined to a wheelchair.

A Boulder jury awarded $5.3 million to a man who fractured his spine after falling from an unsteady ladder when the homeowner walked away without warning.

A federal jury returned a $4 million verdict against Saguache County Jail officials after finding that staff ignored repeated suicidal statements made by 27-year-old Jackson Maes before his death in November 2019.

A Denver jury awarded $31.8 million to the family of an 82-year-old woman killed and other residents injured when a punctured Xcel Energy gas line exploded at Heather Gardens retirement community in 2018, assigning Xcel 12% of the fault.

After Cincinnati Casualty told an Aurora man he owed nothing following three spinal surgeries from a multi-car crash, a Denver jury returned a verdict of more than $3 million for breach of contract and insurance bad faith.

A Denver jury awarded $2.45 million to an 81-year-old nursing home resident who suffered serious leg fractures after an ambulance driver failed to properly secure her wheelchair restraints during transport, causing her to slam into a metal barrier.

A 24-year-old rider with a shattered femur and nearly $940,000 in medical bills won a $2.5 million verdict from a Denver jury in November 2022, a sum the firm reports fell to about $2,272,500 after a 20 percent comparative-fault reduction and interest.