Largest Kentucky Personal Injury Settlements

A Jefferson Circuit Court jury awarded $163,973,760 to Jilianne Warner, who was left permanently quadriplegic after a GEICO-dispatched tow truck plowed into her stopped car at highway speed; the verdict was later overturned on appeal.

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 Warren County jury awarded $27,335,667.87 after a Monarch Environmental garbage truck parked illegally on a rural Kentucky road put a 17-year-old in a coma for 57 days and left her with permanent brain damage.

A Barren County jury awarded $18.27 million after finding that nurses at T.J. Samson Community Hospital disregarded the treating obstetrician's standing Pitocin orders during a 2007 delivery, depriving newborn Tristan Hamilton of oxygen and leaving him with spastic quadriplegia.

The University of the Cumberlands paid $14.1 million to the family of Grant Brace, a 20-year-old wrestler who died of exertional heatstroke in August 2020 after coaches refused him water during a grueling punishment practice and failed to summon medical help.

A Christian County jury found Martinrea Hopkinsville, LLC and its crane operator responsible for the 2015 death of delivery driver Gregory Sean Engleman, crushed by a steel coil weighing more than 15,000 pounds, and awarded his family $12,802,165, reported as a record personal injury verdict for the county.

Ben Crump, alongside Louisville co-counsel Sam Aguiar and Lonita Baker, settled the wrongful-death lawsuit brought by Breonna Taylor's mother against the City of Louisville for $12 million, the largest police-misconduct payout in the city's history, paired with a package of policing reforms the family made a non-negotiable condition of the deal.

A federal jury in Louisville found U-Haul liable under products liability and negligence theories after a rented tow dolly and the Ford Contour on it swayed on Interstate 65 in October 2002, flipping the family Explorer and leaving Corry Burke a quadriplegic. The jury awarded about $11.6 million and put 10 percent of the fault on the driver, so $10.5 million stood. Judge Heyburn denied U-Haul's post-trial motions in June 2007.

An eight-person federal jury awarded $10 million to the widow and two children of Christopher Short, 44, who died when a Marvin Keller Trucking driver crossed the I-64 median in Bath County, Kentucky, in March 2019.

A Kenton County, Kentucky jury awarded Melanie Robbins, then 35, $8.27 million in March 2017 after an emergency room physician and a radiologist missed a warning bleed on a head CT and sent her home. Twelve days later a dissecting brain aneurysm ruptured and left her almost completely paralyzed. The jury split fault equally between the two doctors. The Kentucky Court of Appeals affirmed Dr. Perazzo's half in December 2020.

A Knott County jury found that Mine Safety Appliances Co. sold dust masks it knew were inadequate to protect underground coal miners, awarding coal miner James Couch $8 million after he developed black lung disease, in what was reported as the first coal-dust respirator case in the country to go to trial.

A federal jury in Louisville awarded a Kentucky family $7.24 million, including $6.25 million in punitive damages, after a defective Advanced Bionics HiRes90K cochlear implant let moisture seep inside and violently shocked their young deaf daughter.

A Jefferson Circuit Court jury in May 2002 found Sufix U.S.A. liable and grossly negligent after a Pro-Edge trimmer head broke apart in 1998 and cut Tommy Cook Jr.'s right leg to the muscle, nerves and tendons. The jury awarded about $2.8 million in compensatory damages and nearly $3 million in punitive damages, for $5.78 million in all. The Kentucky Court of Appeals upheld the judgment in 2004.

The Rowan County Board of Education agreed to a $3 million settlement in February 2026 after a coach repeatedly abused a student while administrators ignored at least eight separate reports of the conduct, in what attorneys described as the largest single-victim school sexual abuse settlement in Kentucky history.

A Jefferson County jury awarded Douglas Burnett $2,268,878.20 after he fell from an unfinished commercial staircase in Shelbyville, Kentucky, when a handrail gave way and dropped him ten feet onto concrete. The jury put 80 percent of the fault on the lumber company that supplied and supervised the framing, 15 percent on the general contractor and 5 percent on Burnett. The Kentucky Court of Appeals upheld the liability findings in 2009.

A McCracken County jury awarded a 64-year-old man $1,837,756.05 after he slipped on a puddle in a restroom at Kentucky Oaks Mall in Paducah and fractured himself onto the floor, requiring both lumbar and cervical spine fusion surgeries.

A Fayette County jury awarded a 59-year-old man $1.5 million against Walmart and chair manufacturer Adams Manufacturing Corporation after a plastic outdoor chair he sat in at a Lexington Walmart collapsed and he was injured.

Louisville Metro Government paid $1.25 million to the family of Darnell Wicker, a 57-year-old man shot 14 times by LMPD officers during a 2016 domestic-disturbance call in which he was holding a tree saw.

A Jefferson County jury awarded $1,200,626 to a Fort Knox Staff Sergeant whose left arm was permanently impaired after an AmeriGas propane delivery truck drifted into his lane and clipped his motorcycle on Blevins Gap Road in September 2005.

Jonathan Hollan of Sam Aguiar Injury Lawyers won a $728,218 jury verdict for a plaintiff whose cargo van was struck when a tractor-trailer jackknifed during rush-hour traffic on Louisville's Gene Snyder Freeway.

A Clark County jury awarded $601,853 to a woman rear-ended in the rain on the Mountain Parkway, finding her shoulder and hip injuries, PTSD, and lost income were caused by the collision despite a defense claim that she had exaggerated her symptoms.

A Louisville jury found House of Boom 60% liable after a patron broke his back striking an all-black punching bag during a lights-out event, resulting in damages of roughly $495,000 after comparative fault.

Louisville agreed to pay $375,000 to resolve a federal civil rights lawsuit after a judge found that LMPD Detective Kevin Crawford unlawfully detained and searched 18-year-old Tae-Ahn Lea during a 2018 traffic stop that was captured on video and spread widely online.

A Jefferson County jury took eight minutes to award a retired florist $261,520 after a head-on collision on River Road in Prospect left him trapped in his vehicle and seriously injured, with the verdict coming in a UIM coverage dispute against his own insurer.