Largest Medical Malpractice Personal Injury Verdicts Never Collected
Personal injury verdicts for medical malpractice cases that were awarded and stand, but that the record shows could not be collected: a defendant who was uninsured, closed, bankrupt, or in prison. Each is ranked at what the court awarded and labeled.
- $330.07 millionVerdictReduced from $2.23 billionNot collectableMO
Kansas City Jury's $2.2 Billion Verdict Over Diluted Chemotherapy Cut to $330 Million
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.
After trial: Missouri had no statutory cap on punitive damages in 2002; Judge Wells reduced the award through common law remittitur, finding the jury's punitive figure excessive relative to the compensatory harm. The reduced $330,071,439 judgment stood, and no appellate decision disturbing it appears on the public record.
Ketchmark & McCreight, P.C.2002 · Circuit Court of Jackson County, Missouri (Kansas City)Read the full story → - $330 millionVerdictReduced from $2.2 billionNot collectableMO
$2.2 Billion Verdict Against Pharmacist Who Diluted Chemotherapy Drugs, Later Reduced to $330 Million With Little Collected
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.
After trial: The trial judge reduced the award to roughly $330 million, and actual collection was minimal: Courtney's assets were forfeited to a federal victims' fund. Eli Lilly and Bristol-Myers Squibb paid about $71 million to roughly 360 plaintiffs in related settlements.
- $307.6 millionVerdictOn appealNot collectableMI
Detroit Federal Jury Awards $307.6 Million Over a Denied $919 Surgery
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.
After trial: Post-trial motions and an appeal are pending, and collection is seriously at risk: Corizon reorganized into Tehum Care Services, which filed for bankruptcy, leaving corporate-veil and bankruptcy-stay questions unresolved.
Marko Law Firm2026 · U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan (Detroit)Read the full story → - $100 millionVerdictNot collectableFL
$100 Million Verdict for Infant Maimed in Circumcision by a Doctor Whose License Had Already Been Revoked
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.
After trial: Default-style verdict against an unlicensed, unrepresented doctor with no known assets; the judgment is held in trust for the child but is considered uncollectable.
- $15.71 millionNot collectableAR
She Could Not Turn Herself Over in Bed. The Bedsore That Followed Killed Her, and the Chain That Owned the Home Stopped Defending the Case Entirely.
Zelma Grissom was wholly dependent on staff at Hillview Post Acute and Rehabilitation Center to turn her in bed, which has to happen about every two hours to prevent pressure injury. Staff did not. She developed a bedsore, it became infected, and she died of sepsis in May 2018 at 81. Her family won $15,706,166. Not a dollar of it has been paid.
After trial: Final and entirely uncollected. Liability was established by summary judgment in April 2020 after the defendants stopped defending, and damages were fixed by the Pulaski County Circuit Court in February 2023, so this is a judgment rather than a jury verdict.
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.