Largest Florida Group Settlements and Injury Recovery Funds

A Pensacola jury awarded Cynthia Robinson $23.6 billion in punitive damages against R.J. Reynolds over the 1996 lung cancer death of her 36-year-old husband, the largest single-plaintiff award of Florida's Engle tobacco litigation, but the trial judge called the number constitutionally excessive, an appeals court ordered a full retrial over improper closing arguments, and a second jury returned a complete defense verdict in 2019, so the estate ultimately collected nothing.

C. Steven Yerrid, the youngest of Florida's 11-lawyer 'Dream Team,' added racketeering and conspiracy charges that tripled the damages ceiling, helping the state secure what was then the largest civil settlement in American history against the tobacco industry.

Michael C. Maher's firm, Maher, Gibson & Guiley, P.A., was one of eleven private law firms appointed to the state's Peoples' Trial Advocates in Florida's Medicaid cost-recovery lawsuit against the major cigarette manufacturers, which produced an $11.3 billion settlement, the largest tobacco recovery by a single state in U.S. history at the time.

Wayne Hogan served on the private-counsel team that secured a then-record $11.3 billion settlement from five major cigarette manufacturers, reimbursing Florida's Medicaid program for decades of smoking-related medical costs.

Court-appointed Chair Lead Counsel Peter Prieto of Podhurst Orseck coordinated the nation's largest automotive defect MDL, securing more than $1.5 billion in settlements from seven automakers for tens of millions of vehicle owners harmed by defective Takata airbag inflators.

Saltz Mongeluzzi and Bendesky joined the plaintiffs' leadership team that secured a $1.2 billion settlement for the families and survivors of 98 people killed when Champlain Towers South collapsed in Surfside, Florida on June 24, 2021 -- the largest construction-disaster settlement in U.S. history.

A Polk County jury awarded $110 million in compensatory damages and $1 billion in punitive damages over the death of 69-year-old Arlene Townsend, who fell 17 times at the Auburndale Oaks Healthcare Center, in a Wilkes & McHugh case against Trans Healthcare entities that had defaulted, stopped defending, and were already insolvent and in receivership, which is why the judgment was largely symbolic and the estate ultimately recovered only a small share of a later multi-estate settlement.

Court-appointed co-chair lead counsel Ricardo Martinez-Cid of Podhurst Orseck helped secure over $1 billion for the families of 98 people killed in the June 2021 Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside, Florida, with final approval reached in under a year.

Rachel Furst of Grossman Roth Yaffa Cohen served as co-chair of the plaintiffs' team that secured a $1.2 billion settlement for the families of 98 people killed when Champlain Towers South collapsed in Surfside, Florida -- the largest construction-disaster settlement in U.S. history.

Judd Rosen served as court-appointed lead attorney for the wrongful death and non-owner victim class in the Champlain Towers South collapse litigation, helping secure a $1.2 billion global settlement for the families of the 98 people killed when the Surfside, Florida condominium tower fell on June 24, 2021.

After Champlain Towers South collapsed in the middle of the night and killed 98 people, Curtis Miner of Colson Hicks Eidson served as court-appointed liaison counsel for the wrongful death and personal injury claimants, part of a leadership team that reached a roughly $1.02 billion class settlement.

A Nassau County jury found two trucking companies responsible for the 2017 chain-reaction crash on I-95 near Yulee that killed 18-year-old Connor Dzion, returning a $1 billion verdict that Curry Pajcic won for the teen's parents.

A Gainesville jury awarded $900 million, including $700 million in punitive damages, to stroke survivor Joseph Webb over neglect at the University Place Care and Rehabilitation Center, in a Wilkes & McHugh case tried against defaulted Trans Healthcare entities with no defense present, but Florida's First District Court of Appeal reversed the judgment in 2013 because the trial court had refused to let a defense lawyer appear, and the money was never collected; the estate's claim was later resolved for a small share of a multi-estate bankruptcy settlement.

Steven Marks and Kristina Infante of Podhurst Orseck secured a combined $844 million in wrongful-death judgments for 43 families of passengers killed when LaMia Flight 2933 crashed near Medellin, Colombia, in November 2016, killing 71 of the 77 people aboard.

Todd Smith served as co-lead counsel on the economic loss track of the Takata airbag MDL, helping secure a combined $702.7 million class settlement from Honda ($605 million) and Nissan ($97.7 million), approved by Judge Federico Moreno in March 2018.

A jury found the owners of the Park Social bar liable for a 2017 staircase fall that left a 57-year-old patron a partial quadriplegic, returning a $644,751,855 premises-liability verdict that the defendants have appealed to Florida's Sixth District Court of Appeal.

A Miami federal court entered a roughly $440 million judgment against Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, and MSC for using port terminals Cuba confiscated in 1960, a result the Supreme Court reinstated by a vote of 8 to 1 in 2026.

A Leon County jury awarded $411,726,608 to Duane Washington, a career Army sergeant left partially paralyzed in a 45-vehicle pileup on Interstate 10 near Tallahassee, in the Second Judicial Circuit's first virtual jury trial. Ben Crump tried the damages case with co-counsel Robert Cox. The honest frame: liability was entered by default after defendant Top Auto Express stopped responding in the litigation, its lawyer withdrew months before trial, the one-truck Pembroke Pines carrier sat out the Zoom trial undefended, and industry observers called the record number essentially uncollectable beyond the roughly $1 million in insurance that was offered and rejected before trial.

Aaron Podhurst served as lead class counsel in a $410 million settlement resolving claims that Bank of America systematically manipulated the order of debit card transactions to drive up overdraft fees charged to more than 13 million customers.

A Hernando County jury returned a $330 million verdict for Angela Stone after a drunk driver ran a stop sign and fatally struck a minivan carrying her 13-year-old daughter.

An Orange County jury awarded $310 million to the parents of Tyre Sampson, the 14-year-old who fell to his death from the Orlando FreeFall drop tower at ICON Park in 2022, in a case tried by Kimberly Wald and Michael Haggard against ride manufacturer Funtime Handels GmbH, which sent no lawyer or representative to the trial, leaving collection of the judgment from the absent Austrian company uncertain.

Steven Marks of Podhurst Orseck served as lead liaison counsel for the state-court plaintiffs and on the federal MDL Plaintiffs' Steering Committee, helping recover more than $262 million across insurance settlements for the families of the 110 people killed in the May 1996 crash.

On November 9, 2023, a Sarasota County jury awarded the Kowalski family more than $261 million against Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital: about $211.5 million in compensatory damages plus $50 million in punitive damages, in the case behind the Netflix documentary Take Care of Maya. The honest frame comes first: none of that judgment stands today. The trial judge cut $47.5 million from the award in January 2024, and on October 29, 2025 Florida's Second District Court of Appeal reversed the judgment entirely, holding that the trial court misapplied the statutory immunity for good-faith child-abuse reporting, directing judgment for the hospital on several claims and ordering a new trial on the rest. In August 2026 the Florida Supreme Court declined to review that ruling, so the surviving claims head back to Sarasota County for a narrower retrial. AndersonGlenn tried the original case for the family, and this page documents the full arc, verdict and reversal alike.

A Miami federal jury found Tesla 33% liable for a 2019 Key Largo crash that killed a 22-year-old woman and severely injured her boyfriend, awarding $243 million including $200 million in punitive damages in the first federal trial over a fatal Autopilot accident.