Top Missouri Personal Injury Verdicts and Settlements

A St. Louis jury in July 2018 awarded 22 women and their families $4.69 billion, the largest U.S. verdict of that year, finding that asbestos in Johnson & Johnson's talcum powder products caused ovarian cancer; a Missouri appellate court upheld $2.11 billion in 2020.

A St. Louis jury returned a $4.69 billion verdict against Johnson and Johnson on behalf of 22 women who developed ovarian cancer after years of using the company's talcum powder products, with Thomas K. Neill of Gray, Ritter and Graham, P.C. serving on the plaintiff trial team.

Gray Ritter Graham's Don Downing served as court-appointed co-lead counsel in a massive multidistrict lawsuit against Bayer CropScience over the 2006 contamination of the U.S. long-grain rice supply by an unapproved genetically modified strain, producing a $750 million settlement for more than 11,000 rice farmers across five Southern states.

A St. Louis County jury returned a $745 million verdict against nitrous oxide distributor United Brands and local head shop Coughing Cardinal after finding the companies conspired to sell Whip-It! canisters as an inhalant to a driver who passed out behind the wheel and fatally struck 25-year-old Marissa Politte outside her workplace.

A St. Louis jury awarded $495 million against Abbott Laboratories after finding the company failed to warn that its Similac cow's milk formula could cause necrotizing enterocolitis in premature infants.

A St. Louis jury found trailer manufacturer Wabash National 65 percent at fault and awarded $462 million, most of it punitive, after a defective rear underride guard let a car slide beneath a trailer and kill two young fathers; a judge later cut the total to about $119.5 million.

A St. Louis jury returned a $462 million verdict against trailer maker Wabash National for a 2019 underride crash that killed two young fathers, with the award later reduced to approximately $119.5 million by the trial judge.

A St. Louis jury awarded $462 million against trailer maker Wabash National after its defective rear-impact guard failed and allowed a car to slide beneath a trailer on I-55, killing Taron Tailor, 30, and Nicholas Perkins, 23, in 2019.

Don Downing chaired the court-appointed Plaintiffs' Executive Committee in the federal dicamba MDL and negotiated a $400 million settlement with Monsanto/Bayer covering yield losses suffered by soybean farmers across the country from 2015 through 2020.

Humphrey, Farrington and McClain secured a proposed $250 million settlement on behalf of roughly 207,000 Jackson County homeowners whose property-tax assessments illegally exceeded Missouri's 15% annual cap in 2023 and 2024.

Don Downing led the nation's first certified Vioxx consumer fraud class action on behalf of up to 300,000 Missouri purchasers, securing a $220 million settlement with Merck under the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act.

A Cole County jury awarded $113.7 million to roughly 13,000 Missouri corrections officers who were required to clear security checkpoints and retrieve equipment before and after their paid shifts without receiving a minute of compensation for that time.

A four-day trial ended with a $109.2 million verdict against LaFarge North America after Simon Law proved the supplier knowingly sold Gleeson Asphalt base rock that did not meet the grade it was labeled and paid for.

A Jackson County jury returned a $108.6 million verdict for the parents of a woman who died from sepsis after her husband's religious group prevented her from receiving medical care during a botched home birth.

A St. Louis jury awarded $105 million to tire technician Randy Dorman after a Bridgestone/Firestone RH5 multi-piece truck wheel explosively separated during inflation, fracturing his face, both arms, and wrist, while internal company documents showed Firestone engineers had tracked nearly 100 similar incidents for decades.

A Callaway County jury awarded Beth Mayhew and her husband $82.3 million after a truck driver hit their vehicle on I-70 while driving with both feet on the dashboard and holding an iPad to watch videos.

A Platte County jury returned a record $70 million verdict after an eight-year-old boy died and his six-year-old sister was seriously injured when a distracted driver rear-ended their grandparents' car in a highway construction zone.

A St. Louis County jury awarded $55.4 million to more than 400 investors in InnerPoint Energy Corp. after Simon Law proved that company insiders, including descendants of Anheuser-Busch co-founder Eberhard Anheuser, concealed a rising Michigan energy asset while telling shareholders their investments were worthless.

Maurice Graham of Gray, Ritter and Graham secured a $55 million class action settlement in Doyle v. Fluor for Herculaneum, Missouri homeowners whose properties were contaminated by lead emissions from the Doe Run smelter.

Simon Law secured a $50 million wrongful death settlement after a young man with intellectual disabilities died when a national durable medical equipment supplier repeatedly ignored his mother's calls for a replacement breathing device.

A St. Louis County jury returned Missouri's largest reported medical malpractice verdict after finding that Mercy Hospital East Communities and its obstetrician allowed a first-time mother to push for more than 12 hours without intervention, causing the infant global hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy and permanent cerebral palsy.

Tom Neill of Gray, Ritter and Graham represented the family of one victim killed when a 3,000-pound pressurized steam vessel exploded at Loy-Lange Box Company in St. Louis's Soulard neighborhood, launching the tank into a neighboring laundry and killing four people total; consolidated wrongful-death, injury, and property suits settled for more than $47 million.

A St. Louis jury found Monsanto liable for polychlorinated biphenyl contamination that caused non-Hodgkin lymphoma in three plaintiffs, awarding $46.5 million in the first PCB cancer case of its kind tried to verdict in St. Louis.

A St. Louis jury awarded $46.5 million to three plaintiffs who developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma after PCB exposure, delivering the first plaintiff verdict of its kind against Monsanto in the city.