Largest Georgia Personal Injury Recoveries Confirmed Paid
Personal injury results in Georgia where the record shows the money was paid, or the defendant is an insurer or institution that pays, ranked by amount.
Browse personal injury lawyers in Georgia →- $56 millionSettlementPaidProduct Liability
Autoliv Settles $127 Million Seatbelt Defect Judgment for $56 Million After Abandoning Its Appeal
On April 12, 2013, Micah Andrews, 38, died on Interstate 575 north of Atlanta when he swerved to miss a snapping turtle in the road, ran off the shoulder into trees at about 35 miles an hour, and was killed inside a crash he should have survived: his airbag did not deploy and his Autoliv designed seatbelt spooled out about 20 inches of webbing, letting his face hit the steering wheel hub hard enough to fracture the base of his skull. His widow, Jamie Andrews, sued Autoliv and Mazda in 2014, Mazda settled its own part of the case confidentially in June 2016, and Jim Butler of Butler Prather LLP tried the case with co counsel to a bench verdict before U.S. District Judge Steve C. Jones, who found the seatbelt defectively designed and entered a $127,019,343.40 judgment at the end of December 2021, including $100 million in punitive damages. Autoliv appealed to the Eleventh Circuit, arguing the punitive award was excessive under Georgia law, then abandoned that appeal and paid $56 million to close the case on July 27, 2023, of which $42 million went to Jamie Andrews and $14 million went to the State of Georgia, which had claimed a share of the punitive award.
After trial: Settled and paid. Autoliv appealed to the Eleventh Circuit in November 2022 but abandoned its appeal on July 27, 2023 and paid $56 million to settle: $42 million to Jamie Andrews and $14 million to the State of Georgia.
Butler Prather LLP2023 · U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta DivisionRead the full story → - $26 millionVerdictPaidMedical Malpractice
Columbus Hospital Held Liable For $26 Million After Missed Neck Hematoma Leaves Patient Blind
Sandra Williams, a 53-year-old Columbus, Georgia administrative assistant, went to St. Francis Hospital's emergency room three days after neck surgery with breathing and swallowing trouble caused by a hematoma pressing on her trachea. Hospital staff, including on-call physician Erik Westerlund, delayed treating the hematoma, and a subsequent intubation attempt triggered a respiratory collapse that left her blind, brain damaged and dependent on caregivers. A Muscogee County State Court jury cleared the treating pulmonologist and hospital nurses but found St. Francis Hospital fully liable for Westerlund's negligence, awarding Williams $26 million on December 11, 2017. The hospital then agreed to waive any appeal and pay rather than challenge the verdict.
After trial: Paid. St.
- $16 millionSettlementPaidWorkplace Injury
Runaway Railcar Costs Georgia Plant Worker Both Legs, CSX Settlement Reaches $16 Million
Douglas Burchfield, a General Mills employee at the company's cereal plant in Covington, Georgia, suffered the partial amputation of both legs when a loaded railcar rolled loose and ran him over during a routine railcar switch in June 2005. He sued CSX Transportation, which had delivered the car, arguing it put the car into service with a defective handbrake. A first jury cleared CSX, but the 11th Circuit reversed after finding the trial court had improperly let CSX show the jury a reenactment video, and a retrial jury found Burchfield zero percent negligent, CSX 100 percent negligent, and awarded him $20,559,004. CSX appealed, and while that appeal was pending the parties settled the claim for $16 million, which CSX paid.
After trial: Settled and paid. CSX appealed the retrial judgment to the Eleventh Circuit, and while the appeal was pending the parties settled for $16 million and CSX paid it.
Warshauer Woodward Atkins, LLC2012 · U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta DivisionRead the full story → - $15 millionVerdictPaidMedical Malpractice
DeKalb County Jury Awards $15 Million Over Blood Draw That Left Patient Paralyzed
Cris Nelson lost consciousness during a routine blood draw at an Emory Healthcare clinic in 2012 and fell from the exam table where he had been seated without support, breaking his neck and leaving him a quadriplegic. Emory Healthcare admitted liability for the fall before trial, so the case that went before a DeKalb County jury in spring 2016 was limited to the value of the injury. On May 3, 2016, the jury awarded $15 million: $12 million to Nelson and $3 million to his wife, Deborah, for loss of consortium. No appeal turned up in any source reviewed.
After trial: No appeal, appellate opinion, or later ruling in the case turned up in any source reviewed, so the verdict is treated as final; no Georgia appellate decision under this caption was located. Collectability is listed as paid because the defendant, Emory Healthcare, is a large, institutionally backed academic health system that had already admitted liability before trial, not because a source confirmed the payment itself.
- $1 millionVerdictReduced from $4.7 millionPaidMedical Malpractice
Fulton County Jury Finds Physician at Fault After Misplaced Femoral Line Led to Leg Amputation
Connie Lockhart lost her leg below the knee in March 2012 after a femoral catheter was placed in an artery instead of a vein at a Cherokee County hospital. In January 2019 a Fulton County State Court jury returned a $4.7 million verdict, assigning 27 percent of the fault to the physician who oversaw her care, 3 percent to Lockhart and 70 percent to nonparties. That physician then settled for $1 million, a policy-limits recovery.
After trial: The jury's $4.7 million figure was apportioned 27 percent to the settling physician, and he resolved the claim for $1 million, which is the amount shown. The Georgia Court of Appeals reversed the directed verdict for the second physician in July 2021 and remanded; we could not find the outcome of any retrial.
80 results, largest first
A federal jury in Columbus, Georgia awarded $30.5 million in compensatory damages and $2.5 billion in punitive damages against Ford Motor Company for the deaths of Herman and Debra Mills, killed when the roof of their 2015 F-250 Super Duty crushed down on them in a rollover. Butler Prather LLP tried the case, with James E. Butler Jr., Ramsey Prather, Daniel Philyaw, and Allison Bailey on the trial team. The honest frame: Ford called the verdict impermissibly extreme, moved for a new trial, and in September 2025 settled this case and the related $1.7 billion Hill case on confidential terms, so the verdict was never collected as awarded.
A Cobb County, Georgia jury found that Monsanto's Roundup caused John Barnes's non-Hodgkin lymphoma and awarded him $2.065 billion, with Arnold & Itkin's Kyle Findley serving as lead trial lawyer.
A Gwinnett County jury awarded roughly $24 million in compensatory damages and $1.7 billion in punitive damages against Ford Motor Company for the 2014 rollover deaths of Melvin and Voncile Hill in a 2002 F-250, with James E. Butler Jr. of Butler Prather LLP as lead trial counsel; the Georgia Court of Appeals vacated the judgment in November 2024 and ordered a new trial, and Ford settled the case on confidential terms in September 2025 before a third trial could begin.
A Clayton County jury awarded $1 billion to a woman who was raped at age 14 by an armed security guard her employer hired without verifying he was licensed to carry a weapon.
A 2002 Dodge Ram 15-passenger van carrying 16 women from the We Are Living Proof sober-living program rolled over and caught fire on I-85 at the I-985 split in Gwinnett County on April 24, 2021, killing seven and injuring nine others. Families and survivors sued the van's driver, Chrysler and parent company Stellantis, the group home, and two repair shops, alleging a rollover-prone design, a defective steering system, and a fuel system that let gasoline ignite after impact. The claims settled in 2024 for a combined $162,000,000, described as the largest settlement from a single-vehicle wreck in Georgia history. Families and survivors were represented by several firms, including Shiver Hamilton Campbell and Beasley Allen.
A DeKalb County jury awarded $160 million to the families of Ewell Ynoa and Giovan Diaz, two young men shot and killed at a 2017 rap concert at the Masquerade venue in Underground Atlanta, finding Sony Music Holdings failed to protect patrons at the show.
A DeKalb County State Court jury awarded $140 million on December 20, 2023 to the estate of George Hughes, a 63-year-old tenant who burned to death in a March 2017 fire at the Venetian Hills Apartments in southwest Atlanta, finding the landlord's fire safety failures caused his death, but the judgment did not stand: on October 31, 2025 the Georgia Court of Appeals vacated it, holding that the jury was wrongly instructed under general premises liability law in addition to Georgia's narrower landlord-tenant statute, and the case was remanded for a full retrial that remains pending.
A Bibb County State Court jury awarded $118 million, including $90 million in punitive damages, to Joseph Cason Jr. and his mother Betty Gill after surveillance video showed care home employees striking the severely disabled man at least 69 times. The December 2022 verdict against the Total Care defendants was the largest in the court's history.
A DeKalb County jury awarded more than $77.5 million to the family of Nicholas Carusillo, a 29-year-old with bipolar disorder who was taken off lithium at Metro Atlanta Recovery Residences over his providers' objections, discharged over a phone rule violation, and killed on Interstate 85 less than three days later. MARR appealed in May 2024, and the case settled confidentially in 2025 after the Georgia Court of Appeals remanded it for settlement approval.
A Fulton County State Court jury awarded $75 million to Jonathan Buckelew, who suffered a brain stem stroke after a chiropractic neck adjustment at age 32 and was left with locked-in syndrome when an emergency physician and a radiologist failed to diagnose it for a full day. The Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment in March 2025.
On July 18, 2016, a Schnitzer Southeast tractor-trailer crossed the center line of U.S. Highway 80 in Russell County, Alabama, and killed five members of one family in a head-on collision, including Judy Madere, 58. A Muscogee County State Court jury in Columbus, Georgia found Schnitzer Southeast and its parent, Schnitzer Steel Industries, liable and returned a $280,065,000 verdict for Madere's death on August 23, 2019, reported at the time as the largest wrongful death verdict against a trucking company. Schnitzer said it would appeal, but instead of litigating the verdict, it resolved Madere's suit together with her twin sister Trudy Hebert's separate, still pending suit from the same crash for a combined $68 million in the following fiscal quarter, according to Schnitzer's SEC filings. Three earlier suits from the same crash, brought by the estates of the two children and their mother, had already settled for $35 million combined. The individual amounts within the $68 million settlement are not public.
A DeKalb County jury awarded $81 million in total damages to LaQuan Taylor, a Navy veteran shot at least 11 times during a robbery in a Kroger parking lot. After apportioning 14 percent of the fault to the two assailants, the judgment against Kroger came to $69,660,000.
A Fulton County jury found dermatologist Joseph Payne and his practice liable for missing a recurrence of skin cancer in Tony Waldrop, a Vietnam veteran, after Payne discarded tissue from a 2013 lesion without ordering a biopsy. The cancer went undiagnosed for roughly eight months and required extensive facial surgery that left Waldrop permanently disfigured. In December 2025, on the case's third trial, the jury awarded $32 million to Waldrop's estate and $16 million to his widow, for a combined $48 million. State Court Judge Eric Richardson added $8.8 million in pre-judgment interest, bringing the total judgment to $56.8 million. Waldrop died in 2022, before the case reached its final resolution.
On April 12, 2013, Micah Andrews, 38, died on Interstate 575 north of Atlanta when he swerved to miss a snapping turtle in the road, ran off the shoulder into trees at about 35 miles an hour, and was killed inside a crash he should have survived: his airbag did not deploy and his Autoliv designed seatbelt spooled out about 20 inches of webbing, letting his face hit the steering wheel hub hard enough to fracture the base of his skull. His widow, Jamie Andrews, sued Autoliv and Mazda in 2014, Mazda settled its own part of the case confidentially in June 2016, and Jim Butler of Butler Prather LLP tried the case with co counsel to a bench verdict before U.S. District Judge Steve C. Jones, who found the seatbelt defectively designed and entered a $127,019,343.40 judgment at the end of December 2021, including $100 million in punitive damages. Autoliv appealed to the Eleventh Circuit, arguing the punitive award was excessive under Georgia law, then abandoned that appeal and paid $56 million to close the case on July 27, 2023, of which $42 million went to Jamie Andrews and $14 million went to the State of Georgia, which had claimed a share of the punitive award.
A Fulton County jury awarded $47.7 million after a defective rear seat latch in a 2000 Lincoln LS collapsed during a crash, severing a six-year-old girl's thoracic spinal cord and leaving her paralyzed.
A Schneider National Carriers truck driver who had gone roughly 22 hours without consistent sleep swerved across multiple lanes of Interstate 285 in Atlanta before dawn on August 17, 2017, forcing a pickup into the left lane and onto the emergency lane, where it struck and killed Jarvis Nance Sr., a 35-year-old owner-operator standing beside his own disabled tractor. Nance's widow sued Schneider and the driver in Cherokee County State Court, and on June 7, 2024, after a five-day trial, the jury awarded $47 million in compensatory damages and assigned 100 percent of the fault to the defendants. Schneider has appealed to the Georgia Court of Appeals, which heard oral argument in June 2026 on a cross-examination ruling, the jury instructions, and closing argument conduct. No decision has issued.
A Floyd County jury awarded $43.5 million to the family of Morris Ellison, an 80-year-old man who suffered malnourishment, severe dehydration, and an untreated broken hip before dying at a Rome, Georgia nursing home whose operator had diverted Medicare and Medicaid funds from patient care.
Jeb Butler and Matt Kahn, alongside co-counsel, secured a $40 million settlement against GDOT, a fence contractor, and a construction management firm after a guardrail left in disrepair for months on I-85 contributed to the death of Catrice Hunter.
Jeb Butler co-tried the first Jeep rear-fuel-tank wrongful-death case to a Georgia jury, which returned a $150 million verdict in 2015 later affirmed at $40 million by the Georgia Supreme Court in 2018.
A DeKalb County jury awarded $40 million to Jessica Mundy and her husband after her 2004 Ford Explorer spontaneously shifted from park into reverse, striking and running over her, after the trial team showed Ford had known about the 'false park' transmission defect for decades.
A Bibb County jury awarded $33,465,176 in July 2024 after finding that physicians affiliated with an OB-GYN practice in Macon, Georgia failed to diagnose and treat a bowel perforation that occurred during April Clark's May 2019 ovarian cyst surgery, a failure the family said led to her death that June. The trial court later cut the wrongful death portion of the verdict from $29,250,000 to $350,000 under Georgia's medical malpractice damages cap. On June 16, 2026, the Georgia Supreme Court vacated that reduction, holding the cap cannot apply to a verdict that includes pain and suffering damages protected by the state's constitutional right to a jury trial, which restored the verdict to its full $33,465,176. The Court also sent the case back to the trial court to decide one argument from the defendants' motion for a new trial that the trial court had never reached, so the case is not over.
A Fulton County jury awarded $35 million to the family of Joshua Chang, a 21-year-old Yale student killed when his car struck a concrete planter on the shoulder of Batesville Road, finding the City of Milton 93% responsible for leaving a dangerous obstacle in the right-of-way.
The widow and four daughters of Christopher Crump, a 32-year-old Army veteran, received $32.5 million after his car became trapped under a Tyson Foods tractor-trailer with defective lighting in the pre-dawn darkness, a result reported as Georgia's largest single-plaintiff pre-trial wrongful death settlement at the time.
A Gwinnett County jury awarded $30.5 million in November 2016 after finding that Gwinnett Medical Center and an attending physician failed to act on an ultrasound showing abnormal fetal blood flow at 35 weeks, delaying an emergency C-section long enough to deprive a newborn of oxygen and cause permanent spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.