Top Medical Malpractice Personal Injury Recoveries Confirmed Paid
Personal injury results for medical malpractice cases where the record shows the money was paid, or the defendant is an insurer or institution that pays, ranked by amount.
- $34.1 millionVerdictPaidMO
$34.1 Million Verdict Against CoxHealth for a Birth Injury Tied to Excessive Pitocin at a Springfield Hospital
A Greene County jury awarded $34,107,628 to a boy who suffered permanent brain damage during his 2014 birth at Cox South hospital in Springfield, where escalating doses of the labor drug Pitocin deprived him of oxygen. It was the largest medical malpractice verdict in Missouri in 2021, and because the injury predated the state's 2015 damages cap statute, the noneconomic award stood without reduction.
After trial: Missouri's damages cap did not apply because the 2015 cap statute postdated the 2014 injury. No appeal was reported and the funds were paid into a special needs trust in 2022.
- $20 millionSettlementPaidIL
Cook County Pays $20 Million After a Toddler's Heart Stopped Unnoticed for Five Minutes Following Routine Surgery at Stroger Hospital
In December 2011 a 2-year-old boy went into cardiac arrest after surgery at John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County to repair an undescended testicle. Doctors and nurses did not notice that his heart had stopped for about five minutes before starting CPR. The oxygen loss left him with permanent brain damage; he cannot walk or speak and needs round-the-clock nursing care. On February 5, 2013, the Cook County Board approved a $20 million settlement of the malpractice suit his mother filed, one of the largest in county history. Timothy Ashe represented the family.
After trial: The $20,000,000 settlement was approved by the Cook County Board of Commissioners on February 5, 2013, and is funded by the county. No appeal; the case resolved before trial.
Schwartz Jambois2013 · Circuit Court of Cook County, Chicago (settlement approved by the Cook County Board of Commissioners)Read the full story → - $15 millionVerdictPaidGA
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.
- $13.75 millionVerdictPaidSC
$13.75 Million Verdict for a Woman Who Lost Both Legs, an Arm, and Fingers After a Hospital Delayed Her Sepsis Antibiotics by 14 Hours
Seletha Gartrell, 54, of Aiken, arrived at Aiken Regional Medical Centers on December 6, 2012 with severe sepsis and was not given the antibiotics her doctors ordered for roughly 14 hours; she went into septic shock, suffered a cardiac arrest, and lost both legs above the knee, her left arm below the elbow, and fingers on her right hand. In March 2017 an Aiken County jury found the hospital negligent and awarded her $13.75 million, made up of $10 million in economic damages and $3.75 million in non-economic damages. The hospital publicly disagreed with the verdict, and no appeal or later reduction appears in any public record we could find.
After trial: No appellate opinion or report of a post-trial reduction or settlement was found; the hospital said only that it strongly disagreed with the verdict. The defendant is a hospital owned by Universal Health Services, so collectability was not in doubt, but we could not confirm the date or amount actually paid.
McGowan, Hood, Felder & Phillips, LLC2017 · Aiken County Court of Common Pleas, South Carolina (Judge Clifton Newman)Read the full story → - $13.6 millionVerdictReduced from $130 millionPaidNY
Third Trial Ends in $130 Million Birth Injury Verdict Against St. Charles Hospital
A Suffolk County jury awarded $130 million to a girl who developed cerebral palsy after oxygen deprivation during her 2002 delivery at St. Charles Hospital, after Thomas A. Moore of Kramer, Dillof, Livingston & Moore tried the case three times; appellate review later cut the pain and suffering award to $4.25 million, and the firm reports the case resolved for $13.6 million in cash plus lifetime Medical Indemnity Fund coverage.
After trial: Reduced post-trial and on appeal: pain and suffering set at $4.25M (143 AD3d 692, 2d Dept 2016); per the firm, resolved for $13.6M cash plus lifetime Medical Indemnity Fund coverage.
- $11 millionVerdictReduced from $20 millionPaidAR
A Surgeon Operated on the Wrong Side of a Boy's Brain, and Nobody Told His Parents for More Than a Year. A Pulaski County Jury Took Two Hours to Award $20 Million.
A 15-year-old boy went into Arkansas Children's Hospital for surgery to remove the brain tissue causing his seizures. The surgeon opened the wrong side of his head and removed healthy tissue before turning to the correct side. His parents were not told, and learned of it more than a year later during an unrelated examination.
After trial: Final and affirmed. The jury returned $20,000,000 on September 24, 2010.
Davis, Bethune & Jones, L.L.C.2012 · Pulaski County Circuit Court, AR (affirmed, Arkansas Supreme Court)Read the full story → - $10.5 millionSettlementPaidNJ
Twice-Missed Lung Infiltrate Leads to $10.5 Million Settlement Over New Jersey Lawyer's Death
Brian Coven, a transactional attorney who spent his entire career at Sills Cummis & Gross, went to Summit Medical Group with pneumonia symptoms in January 2019 and again in February 2020, and both chest X-rays showed a lung infiltrate that went unaddressed. He was not diagnosed with cancer until after later losing weight without explanation, and he died of the disease in 2024 at age 68. His estate sued Summit Medical Group and four of its physicians in Essex County, and the group agreed to pay $10.5 million on the physicians' behalf. David Mazie of Mazie Slater Katz & Freeman represented the estate.
After trial: This was a negotiated settlement, not a litigated verdict, and no appeal followed. New Jersey's lost-chance doctrine under Scafidi v.
Mazie Slater Katz & Freeman, LLC2026 · Superior Court of New Jersey, Essex CountyRead the full story → - $9.28 millionVerdictPaidCT
Six Overdoses of a Blood Thinner Turn a Urinary Tract Infection Into 75 Days in the Hospital and a Wheelchair for Life; Jury Awards $9.3 Million
Barbara Lathan, a 65-year-old from the Southport section of Fairfield, Connecticut, walked into Bridgeport Hospital on October 3, 2007 to be treated for a urinary tract infection. Staff overdosed her six times with the blood thinner Lovenox; she bled into her abdomen, went into cardiac arrest, was revived and underwent emergency surgery, then contracted MRSA through a central line in her neck, developed an orange-sized abscess and lost part of her shoulder bone to further surgery. She left 75 days later in a hospital bed and never walked again. In October 2013 a Bridgeport jury deliberated about 90 minutes and awarded her $9,279,884.95, and Bridgeport Hospital's owner publicly apologized to her.
After trial: The hospital moved to set the verdict aside from the courtroom floor and was told to file written post-trial motions. We found no reported appellate decision in the case and no public report of a reduction, so the verdict is treated as final.
- $8 millionSettlementPaidME
The Clinic Documented the Signs of Abuse on Her Infant Son and Never Told Her, and Never Told the State. He Was Beaten Nearly to Death at Six Months Old.
Alexandria Orduna brought her son to a Brewer clinic repeatedly from the time he was four days old. Staff saw and documented red-flag signs of physical abuse and never told her and never reported it to the state, as Maine law requires. At about six and a half months old he was beaten so badly he nearly died. He is permanently blind and brain-injured.
After trial: Approved by the court and final at $8,000,000. A tentative figure of $10,000,000 was announced in February 2022 and widely reported at that number; the settlement actually approved and announced in August 2022 was $8,000,000, and that is the figure that stood.
- $6.88 millionVerdictReduced from $7.8 millionPaidIL
Jury Holds Hospital Liable For Granting Podiatrist Unearned Surgical Privileges
A Cook County jury awarded Jean Frigo $7,775,668.02 after finding that Silver Cross Hospital and Medical Center negligently credentialed a podiatrist who cut through her infected diabetic ulcer during bunion surgery, an error that led to a bone infection and the amputation of her foot. The podiatrist, Paul Kirchner, had never met the hospital's own criteria for surgical privileges and settled with Frigo separately for $900,000 before trial. The trial court credited that settlement against the verdict, entering judgment against Silver Cross for $6,875,668.02. The Appellate Court of Illinois affirmed in full in 2007, in a decision credited with establishing negligent credentialing as an independent cause of action under Illinois law.
After trial: The $7,775,668.02 jury verdict returned on August 26, 2004 was reduced to a $6,875,668.02 judgment against Silver Cross after the trial court credited the hospital with the $900,000 Dr. Kirchner had already paid Frigo in his pretrial settlement.
Hurley McKenna & Mertz, P.C.2004 · Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois; affirmed by the Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, Fourth DivisionRead the full story → - $6.8 millionSettlementPaidNJ
$6.8 Million Hospital Settlement After a Stillbirth at 31 Weeks and the Hysterectomy That Followed
Kristen Dondero was 31 weeks pregnant and under the care of a maternal-fetal specialist when Hackensack University Medical Center sent her home on September 6, 2018 with decreased fetal movement and early labor symptoms. She returned two days later and learned her son had died in utero; the delivery that followed tore her uterus and ended in an emergency hysterectomy, blood transfusions, and further surgery under an induced coma. After five years of litigation marked by the hospital's sworn denials that any internal review of her care existed, and an Appellate Division ruling that those denials could support a fraudulent concealment claim, HMH Hospitals Corp. agreed on July 1, 2025 to pay Kristen and Andrew Dondero $6.8 million. The case against the obstetrician and his practice continued.
After trial: The $6.8 million is the hospital's share only; the claims against Dr. Abdelhak and his practice were still pending as of July 2025 and we found no reported resolution.
Lomurro Munson LLC2025 · Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Bergen CountyRead the full story → - $6.8 millionSettlementPaidNM
Missed Appendicitis Diagnosis at Albuquerque Clinic Leads to $6.8 Million Federal Settlement
In December 2015, a physician at First Choice Community Healthcare in Albuquerque examined a 14-year-old boy for stomach pain and fever but ordered no laboratory or imaging tests. His appendix ruptured two days later, and the septic shock that followed caused a hypoxic brain injury and acute kidney injury that left him permanently disabled after eight months in the hospital. Because the federally funded clinic's staff are treated as federal employees, the family sued the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico. The case settled for $6.8 million in 2020, with most of the money placed in a fund for the boy's future medical care. Robert C. Gutierrez of Will Ferguson & Associates signed the complaint as an attorney of record for the family, alongside Kathryn L. Eaton of Eaton & Eaton Law PC.
After trial: This was an FTCA claim against the United States, paid from federal funds rather than a private insurance policy or the clinic's own assets, so collectability is not in question. Most of the $6.8 million was structured into a fund for the boy's future medical care rather than disbursed as a lump sum.
Will Ferguson & Associates2020 · U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico (Albuquerque)Read the full story → - $6.58 millionVerdictReduced from $8.0 millionPaidID
Idaho Falls Man Left Paraplegic After Urgent Care Delay Wins $6.6 Million Verdict
Shane Ackerschott hurt his back lifting freight in November 2014, then suffered a spinal cord injury and permanent paraplegia after an Idaho Falls urgent care clinic had him stand and walk for tests despite worsening neurological symptoms and never told him to restrict his movement. A Bonneville County jury awarded $7,958,113.67 in damages against Mountain View Hospital, LLC, doing business as RediCare. Idaho's cap on noneconomic damages cut the award by stipulation to $6,575,354.58. The Idaho Supreme Court affirmed the judgment in 2020, rejecting RediCare's comparative-fault defense and declining to reach the Ackerschotts' constitutional challenge to the cap on a timeliness ground.
After trial: The $7,958,113.67 jury verdict was reduced to $6,575,354.58 under Idaho Code section 6-1603, the state's cap on noneconomic damages in force for a 2018 judgment, a reduction of $1,382,759.09. The Ackerschotts preserved a constitutional challenge to that cap on cross-appeal.
Pedersen Whitehead & Hanby2018 · District Court of the Seventh Judicial District, Bonneville County (Idaho Falls)Read the full story → - ~$5 millionVerdictReduced from $10.1 millionPaidTX
Dallas Jury Awards $10.1 Million After Hospital Delay Left Woman Paralyzed
A Dallas County jury found Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Flower Mound willfully and wantonly negligent for delaying treatment of a spinal epidural hemorrhage that left Judy 'Jessie' Adams a paraplegic, returning a verdict of $10,125,000 for Adams and her husband Richard on December 9, 2022. Jurors split fault 69 percent to the hospital, 30 percent to the physician who gave the steroid injection that triggered the bleeding, and 1 percent to his practice. Texas's cap on non-economic damages in health care liability claims cut the couple's non-economic recovery to $500,000, leaving a collectible total of roughly $5 million. The hospital appealed, and its own filing in the court of appeals says the parties reached a full and final settlement on May 31, 2023 and funded it before the appeal was dismissed on July 11, 2023, so the amount Adams ultimately received is not public. Michael Lyons, Christopher Carr, Michael Fechner and Stephen Higdon of Lyons & Simmons represented the Adamses at trial.
After trial: The trial court signed judgment on May 1, 2023, and the hospital appealed to the Fifth District Court of Appeals in Dallas, No. 05-23-00537-CV.
Lyons & Simmons, LLP2022 · 68th Judicial District Court, Dallas County, Texas (Case No. DC-20-17490)Read the full story → - $4.7 millionVerdictPaidIL
Cook County Jury Ties Hospital To ER Doctor's Delay In Securing An Airway
A Cook County jury awarded $4.7 million to the family of Georgia Tagalos, a 49-year-old woman who suffered fatal brain damage after emergency room staff at St. James Hospital of Olympia Fields could not secure her airway during a severe asthma attack. The jury found the hospital and its attending physician, Dr. Perry Marshall, liable, while clearing a resident physician of wrongdoing. The Illinois Appellate Court, First District, affirmed the verdict in full in 2015, holding the hospital vicariously liable for Marshall's conduct because he was the hospital's apparent agent in the eyes of a patient who came to its emergency room for general care.
After trial: The hospital and Dr. Marshall appealed the $4.7 million jury verdict on separate grounds: the hospital argued it could not be held liable through the nurse's conduct or Marshall's independent-contractor status, and Marshall argued he was entitled to a new trial over the use of a medical treatise at trial.
Hurley McKenna & Mertz, P.C.2013 · Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois; affirmed by the Illinois Appellate Court, First DistrictRead the full story → - $3.78 millionVerdictReduced from $3.9 millionPaidID
Idaho Supreme Court Affirms $3.8 Million Verdict Over Improper Catheter Removal
A nurse at St. Luke's Magic Valley Regional Medical Center in Twin Falls, Idaho, removed a central venous catheter from patient Joyce Herrett while she sat upright in a wheelchair in December 2013, letting air enter her bloodstream and causing a stroke. St. Luke's admitted before trial that the nurse breached the standard of care, so a nine-day jury trial in Twin Falls County focused on whether her conduct was reckless and what Herrett's injuries were worth. The jury found the conduct reckless, which kept Idaho's cap on noneconomic damages from applying, and returned a verdict of $3,850,004.83; the parties later stipulated to a reduction reflecting medical expense adjustments, and the court entered an amended judgment of $3,775,864.21. The Idaho Supreme Court affirmed the judgment on September 6, 2018, rejecting St. Luke's challenges to the jury instructions and the denial of a mistrial. Jarom A. Whitehead of Pedersen and Whitehead argued the case for the Herretts.
After trial: The jury's $3,850,004.83 verdict was reduced by stipulation before judgment to reflect contractual adjustments to Herrett's medical expenses, producing the $3,775,864.21 amount that stood. St.
Pedersen Whitehead & Hanby2016 · District Court of the Fifth Judicial District, Twin Falls CountyRead the full story → - $3 millionSettlementPaidNY
Family of Journalist Who Died Hours After Childbirth Settles Harlem Hospital Malpractice Case for $3 Million
Amy Lam, a 34-year-old journalist, died roughly 11 hours after giving birth at home in West Harlem on August 1, 2016, after she was taken to Harlem Hospital Center because her placenta had not been expelled. At least five physicians treated her over about 10 hours, she received more than 20 blood transfusions, and her aorta dissected and ruptured in the operating room, leaving her with no blood volume. Her family, represented by medical malpractice attorney Susan Karten, sued in 2017, naming Harlem Hospital, New York City Health + Hospitals and five physicians, including Dr. Thomas J. Byrne, who performed a hysterectomy on Lam in the hours before her death. Attorneys for the hospital wrote in court records that what happened to her was a rare and unforeseeable lethal event, while Karten and her experts argued that her life could have been saved had the doctors moved sooner to find the source of the bleeding. The case settled for $3 million in 2020, with New York City Health + Hospitals as the only settling defendant.
After trial: There was no trial and no appeal. The family sued in 2017 and the case settled in 2020 for $3 million, paid by New York City Health + Hospitals, the public benefit corporation that runs Harlem Hospital, so collection is not in question.
Susan M. Karten & Associates, LLP2020 · New York State Supreme Court, New York City, NYRead the full story → - $2.38 millionVerdictPaidIL
Coles County Jury Awards $2.38 Million to Prostate Cancer Patient Left Incontinent After a Nurse Gave an Enema a Surgeon Had Not Approved
Five days after a radical prostatectomy at Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center in Mattoon in August 2003, Clinton Dean Lovell was admitted with constipation. A physician ordered an enema only if Lovell's urologist approved; a nurse skipped that step and had an aide give a tap-water enema, which tore open the freshly sutured area and created a fistula between his rectum and bladder. Lovell went through a colostomy, a bladder catheter, fistula repair, colostomy reversal and an artificial urinary sphincter, and was left permanently incontinent. The hospital admitted negligence but blamed the surgery for the fistula. In September 2008 a Coles County jury awarded $2,378,258, and the Illinois Appellate Court affirmed in January 2010.
After trial: Affirmed on appeal by the Illinois Appellate Court, Fourth District, on January 12, 2010 (Lovell v. Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center, No.
- $2.35 millionVerdictPaidMO
Jury Finds Delivery Maneuvers, Not Labor, Caused Newborn's Arm Injury
A Greene County jury found that Dr. Chandria Johnson's delivery maneuvers, rather than the natural forces of labor, caused a brachial plexus nerve injury to a newborn boy identified as K.L. during his November 2014 birth at a Mercy Clinic Springfield Communities facility. Despite six corrective surgeries, the boy was left with permanent weakness in his arm. The jury returned a verdict of $2,348,338.60 against Mercy Clinic Springfield Communities and Dr. Johnson, and because the injury predated Missouri's 2015 noneconomic damages cap statute, the noneconomic award was not subject to a cap.
After trial: No cap applied: the 2014 birth predates the August 2015 effective date of Missouri's reinstated medical malpractice noneconomic damages cap, and Missouri does not apply such a cap retrospectively, so the jury's full noneconomic award stood. No appeal has been identified in Missouri Court of Appeals records or news coverage as of this review.
Johnson, Vorhees & Martucci2023 · Greene County Circuit Court, Springfield, MissouriRead the full story → - $1.16 millionVerdictReduced from $4 millionPaidWV
A $4 Million Wrongful-Death Verdict Was Paid Out at $1.16 Million. This Is the Case That Shows What West Virginia's Cap Actually Does.
A woman came to the Wetzel County Hospital emergency room in 2001 and came under the care of a surgeon who, the estate proved, failed to perform the exploratory surgery that would have found and corrected her intra-abdominal condition. She went into shock and died the next day. The jury awarded $4 million. She was paid $1,162,741.60.
After trial: Final. The January 2008 verdict was $4,000,000 compensatory.
Bordas & Bordas, PLLC2009 · Circuit Court of Wetzel County, WV (reduced on appeal, WV Supreme Court of Appeals)Read the full story →
All medical malpractice verdicts and settlements
250 results, largest first
A Clark County jury ordered Health Plan of Nevada and Sierra Health Services to pay $524 million after finding the UnitedHealth Group subsidiaries negligently credentialed a gastroenterologist whose unsafe injection practices at his Las Vegas endoscopy clinics caused the largest medically caused hepatitis C outbreak in American history.
Georgia Hayes, a Kansas City area ovarian cancer patient, sued pharmacist Robert Courtney after learning he had diluted the chemotherapy drugs used in her treatment. A Jackson County jury found Courtney liable and awarded Hayes $225,571,439 in compensatory damages and $2 billion in punitive damages, the first of hundreds of similar suits against Courtney to reach trial. The trial judge later found the award excessive and cut it by remittitur to $330,071,439, and that reduced judgment stood. Hayes herself and the case reporter covering the verdict both said she was unlikely to ever collect a significant portion of it.
A Kansas City jury awarded ovarian cancer patient Georgia Hayes $225 million in compensatory damages and $2 billion in punitive damages against pharmacist Robert Courtney, who had diluted chemotherapy drugs for profit. The trial judge later reduced the award to roughly $330 million, and Hayes collected almost nothing from Courtney himself, whose assets had been seized by the federal government. Courtney was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison, and drug makers Eli Lilly and Bristol-Myers Squibb later paid $71 million to settle victims' claims.
A Detroit federal jury awarded former Michigan inmate Kohchise Jackson $307.6 million after the state's for-profit prison health contractor refused to pay for the $919 surgery that would have reversed his colostomy.
A Dallas County jury returned one of the largest medical-malpractice verdicts in the country after a teenager with cerebral palsy died at Medical City Dallas when hospital staff administered multiple times the appropriate dose of the anesthetic propofol following a routine airway procedure.
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 Hillsborough County jury awarded $216.8 million to Allan Navarro after an emergency room misdiagnosed his stroke as sinusitis, leaving him permanently paralyzed. It was the largest medical malpractice verdict in Florida history at the time.
A Philadelphia jury found the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania liable for the brain injury a newborn suffered when staff delayed a cesarean section, a $182.7 million verdict that grew to a molded judgment of about $207.6 million, the largest medical malpractice award in Pennsylvania history. Kline & Specter argued and won the appeal, where the Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed the full $207.6 million judgment in July 2025.
A Philadelphia jury returned a $182.7 million verdict -- later reaching $207.6 million with interest and upheld through the Pennsylvania Superior Court in July 2025 -- against the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania for a 45-minute delay in performing a C-section on a mother with a known uterine infection, leaving her child with permanent cerebral palsy.
A Philadelphia jury in May 2005 awarded two women a combined $200 million for heart-valve injuries caused by Wyeth's fen-phen diet drugs, with Steve Kherkher of Williams Bailey (now Kherkher Garcia) leading the trial, before a judge granted Wyeth's post-trial motion and the case resolved through a confidential settlement.
The Cochran Firm (Washington, D.C.) served on the eight-firm Plaintiffs' Steering Committee that secured a $190 million class-action settlement for more than 8,000 patients secretly recorded by Johns Hopkins gynecologist Dr. Nikita Levy.
Jonathan Schochor served as lead attorney for more than 8,000 women who reached a $190 million class-action settlement against Johns Hopkins Hospital after gynecologist Dr. Nikita Levy secretly filmed patients during examinations over a 25-year career.
Thomas Moore won a $172 million jury verdict in Bronx Supreme Court for a woman left with catastrophic brain damage after FDNY EMTs responded to her 1998 cardiac arrest without essential equipment and advised her family to wait for a second ambulance instead of transporting her immediately.
After spinal surgery at the Detroit Medical Center's Children's Hospital of Michigan left a 10-year-old girl partially paralyzed and permanently incontinent, and her surgeon took two vacations before the hardware came out, a Wayne County jury awarded $135 million.
Schochor, Federico and Staton, P.A. represented the largest single group of plaintiffs in a $123 million class-action settlement against Beebe Medical Center for institutional failures that allowed pediatrician Earl Bradley to abuse hundreds of children over 15 years.
A Wayne County jury found Henry Ford Hospital negligent for a delay of over two hours in executing an ordered emergency C-section, awarding $120.9 million to a Detroit mother and her son, who was left with severe cerebral palsy and requires full-time care.
A Bronx jury awarded $120 million to Jacqueline Martin, a 45-year-old mother who suffered permanent brain damage after three New York City hospitals repeatedly failed to recognize and treat a severe allergic reaction to seizure medication that triggered Stevens-Johnson Syndrome.
A Philadelphia jury awarded $108.6 million to a boy who suffered permanent brain damage during a December 2018 forceps delivery at Einstein Medical Center, in a case tried by Gilman & Bedigian against Jefferson Health. Jefferson has vowed to appeal, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is already reviewing the same liability doctrines in the firm's earlier $183 million Penn Medicine verdict, so the award is far from final.
A Palm Beach County jury awarded $100 million against former OB/GYN Berto Lopez, who performed a catastrophic circumcision on a 10-day-old boy ten days after the Florida Board of Medicine revoked his license, though the unlicensed doctor skipped the trial and collection remains doubtful.
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.
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.
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.
A San Luis Obispo jury awarded $74.5 million to the family of a girl who was born with cerebral palsy in April 2009 after her obstetrician failed to respond to deteriorating fetal heart-rate tracings and did not order emergency delivery at Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center.
A Santa Fe jury returned a $73.2 million verdict, the largest medical malpractice award in New Mexico history at the time, after finding that an OB/GYN and his clinic failed to recognize a high-risk pregnancy, leading to a prolonged birth that left an infant with permanent brain damage and a non-functional right arm.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.