Top New Mexico Personal Injury Verdicts

Acadia Healthcare agreed to pay $400 million to resolve three civil cases arising from its Desert Hills and Familyworks foster care program in New Mexico, where licensed foster parent Clarence Garcia sexually abused multiple children in his care.

A Rio Arriba County jury held Acadia Healthcare and its New Mexico foster care subsidiaries responsible for placing an 8-year-old girl with a foster father who raped her repeatedly, returning one of the largest single-plaintiff sexual abuse verdicts in the country.

A Santa Fe jury awarded $190 million to the families of two young people killed and three others seriously injured when an intoxicated View Homes Inc. executive crossed the center line on Highway 213 near Chaparral, New Mexico, on January 17, 2023.

A Santa Fe jury awarded $165.5 million, the largest verdict in New Mexico history, to the survivors of a young mother and her daughter killed when a FedEx tractor-trailer plowed into their stopped pickup at highway speed on Interstate 10.

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.

A New Mexico jury found German device maker Biotronik and its sales representative liable for conspiring with a Las Cruces cardiologist and a hospital to implant medically unnecessary pacemakers in dozens of patients for profit.

A New Mexico jury awarded $58.5 million, believed at the time to be the state's largest truck verdict, to the family of Kevin Udy, a mechanical engineer killed in 2010 when a tanker truck turned into his path on a highway near Carlsbad.

An Albuquerque jury awarded $52 million in punitive damages against Professional Underwriters Liability Insurance Company after finding the insurer deliberately concealed notice of patient deaths and then refused to defend the physician it had covered.

On February 23, 2017, a Werner Enterprises student driver on his eighth day behind the wheel crossed four lanes of Interstate 10 and the median outside Las Cruces, New Mexico, and struck Kathryn Armijo's vehicle head-on, killing her. Her estate sued Werner, the driver, and the driver's trainer over inadequate training and supervision, and a Santa Fe County jury returned a $40.5 million verdict on October 11, 2019, including $10 million in punitive damages. David Harris, a partner at Sico Hoelscher Harris LLP, was plaintiff co-counsel for the estate. No appeal of the verdict has surfaced, and Werner, a large publicly traded and insured motor carrier, is treated as having satisfied the judgment.

A New Mexico jury found Utility Trailer Manufacturing negligent for failing to install side underride guards, awarding the family of a 16-year-old killed in a 2015 highway fire crash a net verdict of $18.9 million.

A Bernalillo County jury returned an $11 million verdict, including $6 million in punitive damages, for the wrongful death estate of an 88-year-old woman who developed deep tissue heel wounds during a short rehabilitation stay at a skilled nursing facility and died roughly two years later.

Shamieh Law and co-counsel secured an $8 million settlement for two former New Mexico State University basketball players who were sexually assaulted by teammates while coaches and administrators failed to act.

An Albuquerque jury awarded $7.75 million to Michael Webb and his wife after Presbyterian Hospital ICU staff failed to reposition him for extended stretches, causing a devastating Stage 4 pressure ulcer that remained unhealed more than five years later.

Luna County agreed to a $7 million settlement after a sheriff's deputy driving more than 130 mph T-boned a family's car on a rural New Mexico highway, killing a 14-month-old boy and severely injuring his mother.

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.

A state district judge awarded $6 million to the family of Christopher Torres, a 27-year-old man with schizophrenia, after finding that two plainclothes APD detectives escalated a routine warrant service into a fatal encounter, then shot him three times in the back without justification.

New Mexico's child welfare agency agreed to a $5.5 million federal civil rights settlement after caseworkers placed an eight-year-old girl with her father, who then beat her to death, despite a documented history of abuse allegations against him.

An Albuquerque federal jury awarded $5.4 million to the widow of Martin Leon, a California man who died after a sleep-deprived FedEx Ground contractor driver rear-ended a tractor-trailer on Interstate 40 near Grants, New Mexico.

New Mexico settled for $4.9 million after CYFD received multiple abuse referrals for a four-year-old boy, documented injuries consistent with serious harm at an urgent care visit, and still returned him to the home where he was beaten to death 52 days later.

A New Mexico jury awarded Jose Sandoval $2.2 million and found Baker Hughes 100% at fault after a pressurized packer tool exploded on a well site, driving a chain tong handle into Sandoval's leg and causing a severe femur fracture.

A New Mexico judge awarded Michael Brian McDonald $2,027,424.91 after finding that Zimmer's dual-modular Kinectiv hip implant shed metal debris into his bloodstream, causing metallosis and forcing two revision surgeries.

New Mexico State University agreed to pay $1 million and require annual consent and sexual assault training for every enrolled student after a lawsuit alleged the university failed to investigate or protect a freshman who was raped in her dorm room in September 2022.

Davis Kelin Law Firm secured a $439,000 settlement for the widow of Scott Pierce, killed by serial killer Clifton Bloomfield in 2008 after Albuquerque police failed to arrest Bloomfield for two prior murders and multiple probation violations.

Adrian Vega secured a $300,000 settlement for Santa Fe police officer Damian Vigil, who was severely mauled by K-9 Ayke during a department demonstration after superiors pressured him to act as a suspect without protective headgear.