Top Individual Massachusetts Personal Injury Verdicts and Settlements
The 20 largest individual personal injury results in Massachusetts on record here, ranked by amount: one client's, one family's, or one incident's recovery, never a pooled fund. Each links to the full story, the firm, and the record behind the number.
Browse personal injury lawyers in Massachusetts →- $200 millionVerdictWrongful Death
$200 Million Verdict Against R.J. Reynolds for Boston Woman's Lung Cancer Death
A Suffolk County jury awarded $200 million in October 2023, the largest wrongful death award in Boston history, against R.J. Reynolds for the lung cancer death of Rita Jones, who first received free Newport cigarettes as a teenager in 1964.
- $91 millionVerdictWorkplace Injury
Insurer's Six-Year Stonewalling Triggers $91 Million Bad-Faith Judgment in Longfellow Bridge Case
After winning a $26.6 million jury verdict for a union mason who fell through defective scaffolding on the Longfellow Bridge, Andrew Abraham of Keches Law Group returned to court and proved that Liberty Mutual's insurers willfully refused to investigate or settle a clear liability case, prompting a judge to double the compensatory judgment to over $91 million under Chapter 93A and 176D.
- $56 millionVerdictCar Accidents
Middlesex Jury Awards $56 Million to Retiree Disabled When Amazon Delivery Van Crossed the Center Line
A Middlesex Superior Court jury awarded $56 million on July 22, 2026 to Malcolm Carnwath, a 78-year-old retired realtor from Newburyport, Massachusetts. An Amazon delivery driver fell asleep and crossed the center line in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on Nov. 16, 2024, causing a head-on crash. Mr. Carnwath suffered a cardiac arrest, multiple strokes with permanent brain injury, and a below-knee amputation of his left leg. Amazon accepted liability days before the two-day damages trial.
After trial: Reporting through mid-August 2026 describes no post-trial motion or appeal, but we have not checked the Middlesex docket and cannot confirm the judgment is final or whether any payment has been made. The result is shared with co-counsel at Breakstone, White & Gluck.
Sweeney Merrigan Personal Injury Lawyers and Breakstone, White & Gluck2026 · Middlesex Superior Court, MassachusettsRead the full story → - $56 millionVerdictWrongful Death
Billion-Dollar Tobacco Verdict Upheld at $56 Million After SJC Review
A Massachusetts jury returned a $1 billion punitive verdict against Philip Morris in 2022 over the lung cancer death of Barbara Fontaine, a case handled in part by Rubenstein Law attorney Kevin Donovan; the punitive award was later reduced to $56 million, a figure the state Supreme Judicial Court upheld in April 2026.
Rubenstein Law Personal Injury Lawyers2022 · Middlesex County Superior Court, MassachusettsRead the full story → - $45.5 millionVerdictWorkplace Injury
Mason Falls Five Feet Through Scaffold Gap on Longfellow Bridge, Wins $26.6 Million Verdict
A Middlesex County jury awarded $26.6 million to union mason John Rooney, Jr. after he fell through a two-foot scaffold gap during the Longfellow Bridge rehabilitation and suffered seven spinal operations and permanent disability, with pre-judgment interest bringing the total compensatory judgment to roughly $45.5 million.
- $43.1 millionVerdictProduct Liability
$43.1 Million Verdict Against R.J. Reynolds for Brake Mechanic's Lung Cancer From Menthol and Asbestos
A Boston jury awarded $43.1 million on October 12, 2018 to the widow and son of Louis Summerlin, a former brake mechanic and lifelong menthol smoker who died of lung cancer in 2015 at 73, finding R.J. Reynolds' Salem and Kool cigarettes defectively designed and the company guilty of fraud, while clearing Philip Morris and an auto parts distributor. Jerome Block of Levy Konigsberg tried the case with Michael Shepard of Shepard Law. It was the first trial in the country to take a lung cancer claim to verdict against both tobacco and asbestos defendants, and the largest verdict in New England that year.
After trial: No appellate decision altering the verdict has been reported, and no settlement or payment has been reported. Whether R.J.
- $42.6 millionVerdictProduct Liability
Massachusetts Jury Returns $42.6 Million Verdict Against J&J in Baby Powder Mesothelioma Case
A Massachusetts jury found Johnson & Johnson liable for Paul Lovell's mesothelioma, awarding $42.6 million in what is believed to be the largest mesothelioma verdict in the state's history.
Thornton Law Firm2025 · Middlesex County Superior Court, Massachusetts (No. 21-2086)Read the full story → - $40 millionVerdictMedical Malpractice
$40 Million Verdict for Family of Boy Left with Cerebral Palsy After Five-Hour Delivery Delay
A Middlesex County jury returned the largest personal-injury verdict in Massachusetts history after finding that an obstetrician waited more than five hours to perform an emergency C-section despite clear signs of fetal distress, causing a Dracut boy to develop cerebral palsy.
- $35.4 millionVerdictMedical Malpractice
Marathon Runner Paralyzed After Childbirth Stroke Wins $35.4 Million Verdict Against Dedham Medical
A Norfolk Superior Court jury awarded Andrea Larkin $35.4 million after finding that Dedham Medical Associates failed to document a known brain abnormality, leaving her obstetrician unaware of a condition that made vaginal delivery dangerous.
- $30.55 millionVerdictMedical Malpractice
$30.55 Million Verdict After Traveling Nurse Failed to Monitor Fetal Heart Rate at MGH
A Suffolk County jury awarded $30.55 million to the family of a boy left with catastrophic brain damage after a traveling nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital abandoned continuous fetal heart-rate monitoring during a prolonged second stage of labor.
- $29 millionVerdictMedical Malpractice
$29 Million Verdict After Salem Hospital Doctors Miss Fatal Aortic Aneurysm
An Essex Superior Court jury awarded $29 million to the two daughters of Joseph Brown, 43, after Salem Hospital emergency physicians failed to order a CT scan that would have revealed a fatal aortic aneurysm and dissection in time for lifesaving surgery.
- $28 millionVerdictWrongful Death
$28 Million Verdict After Boston Bar Serves Alcohol to Minors Who Fatally Assault 23-Year-Old
A Suffolk County jury awarded $28 million, including $25 million in punitive damages, after Father's Huddle Cafe in Boston served alcohol to underage patrons who attacked Thomas Christopher, 23, chasing him into traffic where he was struck and killed; the Massachusetts Appeals Court affirmed the verdict against the bar on January 28, 2003.
Sugarman & Sugarman2003 · Suffolk County Superior Court / Massachusetts Appeals Court (affirmed 2003)Read the full story → - $23.6 millionVerdictReduced from $39.1 millionProduct Liability
Boston Jury Blames Talc Supplier for Utah Man's Mesothelioma After 2014 Pleurodesis, $23.6 Million Stood
A Boston jury found on Sept. 13, 2024 that Cimbar Performance Minerals misrepresented the safety of its Elite Talc 2000 and that its negligence helped cause a Utah man's mesothelioma, which was diagnosed seven years after he received talc during a 2014 pleurodesis. It is the first known verdict on that theory. The jury awarded about $39.1 million, and the trial judge later cut the future pain and suffering item from $21.5 million to $6 million. About $23.6 million stood.
After trial: The trial judge reduced the future pain and suffering award from $21.5 million to $6 million and left the liability findings and the rest of the award intact. Cimbar appealed, and the Massachusetts Appeals Court heard argument on Sept.
The Lanier Law Firm and Meirowitz & Wasserberg, LLP2024 · Massachusetts Superior Court, BostonRead the full story → - $21 millionVerdictWrongful Death
$21 Million Verdict Against Philip Morris for Smoker Who Started at Age 13
A Boston jury awarded $21 million to the widow of a Lynn man who died of lung cancer after taking up smoking at 13, when a salesman handed him a free pack of Marlboros, with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court affirming the verdict in full in 2021.
- $20.7 millionVerdictProduct Liability
$20.7 Million Verdict Against R.J. Reynolds in Massachusetts Tobacco Cancer Case
A Middlesex County jury awarded Joseph Reppucci and his wife $20.7 million after finding that R.J. Reynolds and Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co. bore responsibility for the oropharyngeal cancer he developed following decades of smoking their cigarettes.
Rubenstein Law Personal Injury Lawyers2023 · Middlesex County Superior Court, MassachusettsRead the full story → - $20.6 millionVerdictProduct Liability
$20.6 Million Verdict After Defective Pool Slide Kills Massachusetts Mother
A Salem jury awarded $20.6 million, including $18 million in punitive damages, after a defective Banzai inflatable pool slide sold by Toys R Us collapsed and killed a 29-year-old woman in Andover, Massachusetts; the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld the full verdict in 2013.
Sugarman & Sugarman2011 · Essex Superior Court, Salem, MA (affirmed Mass. SJC 2013)Read the full story → - $20 millionVerdictMedical Malpractice
ER Twice Dismissed Blood Clot as Sciatica. The Patient Lost His Leg. A Jury Awarded $20 Million.
A Middlesex Superior Court jury awarded Steven Luppold $20 million after Lowell General Hospital emergency staff misdiagnosed a leg blood clot as sciatica on two separate visits, delaying treatment until amputation was unavoidable.
After trial: $28.8 million with interest.
- $18.4 millionVerdictMedical Malpractice
Federal Jury Awards $18.4 Million After Lahey Clinic Doctors Cancel HIV Test, Allowing AIDS to Develop
A federal jury in Boston awarded $18.4 million to Sean Stentiford, a former paramedic turned attorney, after two Lahey Clinic physicians canceled an HIV test he had consented to in 2007, allowing the virus to progress undetected to AIDS and cause permanent brain damage.
- $16.7 millionVerdictMedical Malpractice
$16.7 Million Verdict After Radiologist Missed Lung Cancer on Chest X-Ray at Brigham and Women's
A Suffolk Superior Court jury awarded $16.7 million after a Brigham and Women's Hospital radiologist read a 2006 chest X-ray as normal, missing a visible lung nodule that would develop into terminal cancer within 13 months.
- $15 millionSettlementMedical Malpractice
$15 Million Settlement After Infant Dies During Sleep Study at Boston Children's Hospital
Lubin and Meyer secured a $15 million settlement for the family of six-month-old Jackson Kekula, who suffered catastrophic brain injury after going without oxygen for more than 20 minutes during a sleep study at Boston Children's Hospital and died 12 days later.
All Massachusetts verdicts and settlements
39 results, largest first
The family of Greg Sharrigan, killed when a gas leak ignited at his Maynard home in September 2021, sued Eversource for $450 million, alleging the utility detected the underground leak three years before the fatal explosion and never fixed it.
A Suffolk County jury awarded $200 million in October 2023, the largest wrongful death award in Boston history, against R.J. Reynolds for the lung cancer death of Rita Jones, who first received free Newport cigarettes as a teenager in 1964.
After winning a $26.6 million jury verdict for a union mason who fell through defective scaffolding on the Longfellow Bridge, Andrew Abraham of Keches Law Group returned to court and proved that Liberty Mutual's insurers willfully refused to investigate or settle a clear liability case, prompting a judge to double the compensatory judgment to over $91 million under Chapter 93A and 176D.
Peter Merrigan of Sweeney Merrigan Personal Injury Lawyers represented 125 Massachusetts cities and towns in claims against Johnson and Johnson and the three largest opioid distributors, recovering $84.1 million in aggregate from the national opioid settlements.
A Middlesex Superior Court jury awarded $56 million on July 22, 2026 to Malcolm Carnwath, a 78-year-old retired realtor from Newburyport, Massachusetts. An Amazon delivery driver fell asleep and crossed the center line in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on Nov. 16, 2024, causing a head-on crash. Mr. Carnwath suffered a cardiac arrest, multiple strokes with permanent brain injury, and a below-knee amputation of his left leg. Amazon accepted liability days before the two-day damages trial.
A Massachusetts jury returned a $1 billion punitive verdict against Philip Morris in 2022 over the lung cancer death of Barbara Fontaine, a case handled in part by Rubenstein Law attorney Kevin Donovan; the punitive award was later reduced to $56 million, a figure the state Supreme Judicial Court upheld in April 2026.
A Middlesex County jury awarded $26.6 million to union mason John Rooney, Jr. after he fell through a two-foot scaffold gap during the Longfellow Bridge rehabilitation and suffered seven spinal operations and permanent disability, with pre-judgment interest bringing the total compensatory judgment to roughly $45.5 million.
A Boston jury awarded $43.1 million on October 12, 2018 to the widow and son of Louis Summerlin, a former brake mechanic and lifelong menthol smoker who died of lung cancer in 2015 at 73, finding R.J. Reynolds' Salem and Kool cigarettes defectively designed and the company guilty of fraud, while clearing Philip Morris and an auto parts distributor. Jerome Block of Levy Konigsberg tried the case with Michael Shepard of Shepard Law. It was the first trial in the country to take a lung cancer claim to verdict against both tobacco and asbestos defendants, and the largest verdict in New England that year.
A Massachusetts jury found Johnson & Johnson liable for Paul Lovell's mesothelioma, awarding $42.6 million in what is believed to be the largest mesothelioma verdict in the state's history.
A Middlesex County jury returned the largest personal-injury verdict in Massachusetts history after finding that an obstetrician waited more than five hours to perform an emergency C-section despite clear signs of fetal distress, causing a Dracut boy to develop cerebral palsy.
A Norfolk Superior Court jury awarded Andrea Larkin $35.4 million after finding that Dedham Medical Associates failed to document a known brain abnormality, leaving her obstetrician unaware of a condition that made vaginal delivery dangerous.
A Suffolk County jury awarded $30.55 million to the family of a boy left with catastrophic brain damage after a traveling nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital abandoned continuous fetal heart-rate monitoring during a prolonged second stage of labor.
An Essex Superior Court jury awarded $29 million to the two daughters of Joseph Brown, 43, after Salem Hospital emergency physicians failed to order a CT scan that would have revealed a fatal aortic aneurysm and dissection in time for lifesaving surgery.
A Suffolk County jury awarded $28 million, including $25 million in punitive damages, after Father's Huddle Cafe in Boston served alcohol to underage patrons who attacked Thomas Christopher, 23, chasing him into traffic where he was struck and killed; the Massachusetts Appeals Court affirmed the verdict against the bar on January 28, 2003.
A Boston jury found on Sept. 13, 2024 that Cimbar Performance Minerals misrepresented the safety of its Elite Talc 2000 and that its negligence helped cause a Utah man's mesothelioma, which was diagnosed seven years after he received talc during a 2014 pleurodesis. It is the first known verdict on that theory. The jury awarded about $39.1 million, and the trial judge later cut the future pain and suffering item from $21.5 million to $6 million. About $23.6 million stood.
A Boston jury awarded $21 million to the widow of a Lynn man who died of lung cancer after taking up smoking at 13, when a salesman handed him a free pack of Marlboros, with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court affirming the verdict in full in 2021.
A Middlesex County jury awarded Joseph Reppucci and his wife $20.7 million after finding that R.J. Reynolds and Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co. bore responsibility for the oropharyngeal cancer he developed following decades of smoking their cigarettes.
A Salem jury awarded $20.6 million, including $18 million in punitive damages, after a defective Banzai inflatable pool slide sold by Toys R Us collapsed and killed a 29-year-old woman in Andover, Massachusetts; the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld the full verdict in 2013.
A Middlesex Superior Court jury awarded Steven Luppold $20 million after Lowell General Hospital emergency staff misdiagnosed a leg blood clot as sciatica on two separate visits, delaying treatment until amputation was unavoidable.
A federal jury in Boston awarded $18.4 million to Sean Stentiford, a former paramedic turned attorney, after two Lahey Clinic physicians canceled an HIV test he had consented to in 2007, allowing the virus to progress undetected to AIDS and cause permanent brain damage.
A decayed tree from a neighbor's rental lot in Orange, Massachusetts fell on three women in August 2024, causing traumatic brain injuries and fractures; Franklin County Superior Court entered a $17.6 million judgment against the property owner in March 2026.
A Suffolk Superior Court jury awarded $16.7 million after a Brigham and Women's Hospital radiologist read a 2006 chest X-ray as normal, missing a visible lung nodule that would develop into terminal cancer within 13 months.
Lubin and Meyer secured a $15 million settlement for the family of six-month-old Jackson Kekula, who suffered catastrophic brain injury after going without oxygen for more than 20 minutes during a sleep study at Boston Children's Hospital and died 12 days later.
A Suffolk Superior Court jury awarded $13.5 million (a $9.4 million verdict plus interest) to the family of Amy Altman, 40, who died of a flesh-eating bacterial infection in July 2003 after Dana-Farber oncologists failed to investigate 17 consecutive days of diarrhea during an experimental chemotherapy protocol.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.