Top Illinois Personal Injury Verdicts and Settlements

Boehringer Ingelheim agreed to pay $650 million in May 2014 to resolve approximately 4,000 federal lawsuits claiming the blood thinner Pradaxa caused life-threatening bleeding injuries without adequate warnings, in an MDL presided over by Judge David Herndon in the Southern District of Illinois where the court appointed TorHoerman Law's Tor Hoerman as one of five plaintiffs' co-lead counsel.

A Champaign County jury returned a $535 million verdict -- the largest known single-plaintiff verdict in Illinois history -- against a psychiatric facility that failed to prevent the rape of a 13-year-old female patient by another adolescent resident.

A Cook County jury found Sterigenics and its corporate owners liable for Sue Kamuda's breast cancer from ethylene oxide emissions and awarded $363 million, then the largest individual-plaintiff verdict in Illinois history.

A Cook County jury awarded Tierney Darden $148 million after a 750-pound pedestrian shelter toppled onto her at O'Hare and severed her spine, a record the city later settled for $115 million.

Robert Clifford co-led the families of 68 people killed when American Eagle Flight 4184 iced over and crashed near Roselawn, Indiana, to a record $110 million settlement and an apology in open court.

A Cook County jury returned a $101 million verdict against West Suburban Medical Center after staff ignored fetal monitoring for six hours during labor, though a pre-verdict high-low agreement limited the family's recovery to $50 million.

A Cook County jury awarded $95.5 million to a truck driver who lost both legs when improperly loaded carbon steel bundles fell from a crane during unloading, with a 10% comparative fault reduction bringing the net award to $85.9 million, the highest double-amputation verdict in Illinois history.

A suburban Chicago man who lost both legs above the knee when a car jumped the curb and pinned him against a Bensenville 7-Eleven secured a $91 million settlement, the largest pretrial personal injury recovery in Illinois history, after Power Rogers LLP showed the company had documented thousands of similar storefront crashes and still refused to install protective bollards.

A Cook County jury awarded $79.85 million to the family of a 10-year-old girl killed when an unauthorized Chicago police pursuit ended in a multi-car crash, a verdict the parties later resolved for $62.5 million.

A Cook County jury awarded $75,859,000 to a baby girl left with permanent brain damage and physical injuries after doctors needlessly turned her during a twin delivery at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

Thomas Demetrio of Corboy & Demetrio represented seven of the people killed and injured when a suspended work platform fell from the John Hancock Center in 2002, part of a $75 million global settlement reached on the eve of trial.

A Cook County jury found plastic surgeon Dr. Ayoub Sayeg liable for the death of Idalia Corcoles, a 39-year-old mother of four who bled to death after liposuction and a tummy tuck, in a case that produced a $66.262 million judgment.

A Cook County jury awarded $64 million to Ronald Bayer, a union ironworker paralyzed from the neck down after falling 15 feet at a Panduit Corp. warehouse construction site in DeKalb, Illinois -- at the time the largest verdict ever returned for a quadriplegic in Illinois.

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 54-year-old woman underwent a routine bronchoscopy for a possible tuberculosis biopsy, but physicians ignored oximeter alarms and delayed intubation until she had suffered irreversible anoxic brain damage, leaving her with locked-in syndrome; the Cook County jury returned a $55.4 million verdict against the responsible physicians, then the largest medical malpractice award in Illinois history.

Geoffrey Fieger and Jack Beam won the largest birth-injury verdict in Cook County history against the University of Chicago Medical Center, after a mother in fetal distress was left without an obstetrician for hours before an emergency cesarean.

A Winnebago County jury awarded $52 million to the Krischon family for a 2018 crash caused by an off-tracking Panera Bread semi-truck that killed an 88-year-old man and seriously injured his son, finding the company and its driver 90 percent at fault. The award was part of a $67 million total verdict that also compensated a second family represented by separate counsel.

A Cook County jury awarded $51 million to John Reinke after OSF Heart of Mary Medical Center discharged him without testing his blood sugar, leading to a diabetic cardiac arrest that left him with a permanent brain injury.

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 Cook County jury found Advocate Condell Medical Center responsible for the death of a 47-year-old quadriplegic father who suffered fatal baclofen withdrawal while waiting for a delayed surgery to replace his medication pump, and the verdict was later affirmed on appeal.

James Daniels, a Local 1 ironworker, fell about 23 feet from a form wall on the $978 million Fermilab PIP-II particle accelerator project in May 2023, suffering catastrophic injuries including a traumatic brain injury, rib fractures, and nerve damage; GWC Injury Lawyers recovered a $40 million settlement in 2026.

A Coles County jury awarded $40 million to a 19-year-old and her parents after finding that hospital staff at Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center delayed calling a physician during a placental abruption, causing preventable birth injuries including cerebral palsy.

A 12-year-old girl suffered permanent, catastrophic brain damage after cardiac arrest during a PICC-line procedure at Highland Park Hospital, and Power Rogers secured a $40 million settlement that the Jury Verdict Reporter identified as the largest-ever Cook County recovery for a brain-injured minor.

A Cook County jury awarded Antonio DeAngelo $39.9 million, an Illinois record for a stroke case, after a physician tied to Advocate Physician Partners left his dangerously high blood pressure untreated.