Top Individual Pennsylvania Personal Injury Verdicts and Settlements
The 20 largest individual personal injury results in Pennsylvania 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 Pennsylvania →- $907 millionNot collectableWrongful Death
Maddux Family Wins $907 Million Wrongful Death Judgment Against Fugitive Ira Einhorn
In July 1999, a Philadelphia jury awarded $907 million against Ira Einhorn for the 1977 killing of his girlfriend, Helen 'Holly' Maddux, in a civil wrongful death and survival action filed by her family. Einhorn was a fugitive living in France at the time and sent no attorney, so the court directed a verdict for the family on liability and left the six-member jury to decide damages alone. The jury deliberated a little over an hour before returning $752 million in punitive damages and $155 million in compensatory damages. Firm founder James E. Beasley represented the Maddux family. The suit was never intended to collect money from a fugitive with no assets; it was filed to stop Einhorn from profiting off book or movie deals about the case.
After trial: Judgment entered after the defendant, a fugitive in France, presented no defense, with the jury deciding damages only. No post-trial motion or appeal has been reported.
- $725.5 millionVerdictProduct Liability
$725.5 Million Verdict Against ExxonMobil for Mechanic's Leukemia, Reported as Largest Benzene Award
A Philadelphia jury awarded $725.5 million to former Mobil service station mechanic Paul Gill, who developed acute myeloid leukemia after years of cleaning car parts with benzene-containing gasoline and solvents, in what was reported as the largest benzene verdict in U.S. history; the court later added over $90 million in delay damages while ExxonMobil's appeal remains pending.
After trial: Post-trial motions were denied in September 2024 and delay damages brought the judgment to roughly $816 million. ExxonMobil's appeal to the Pennsylvania Superior Court is pending.
- $400 millionVerdictOn appealProduct Liability
Kline & Specter Wins $2.25 Billion Roundup Cancer Verdict
A Philadelphia jury found that Monsanto failed to warn that Roundup could cause cancer and awarded John McKivison $2.25 billion. The trial judge later reduced the award to $400 million.
After trial: The trial judge cut the verdict by more than 80 percent, to $400 million ($50 million compensatory and $350 million punitive). The plaintiff appealed the reduction and Monsanto appealed the liability finding.
- $207.6 millionVerdictMedical Malpractice
Kline & Specter Wins Appeal Preserving Record $207.6 Million Birth Injury Judgment Against Penn Hospital
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.
After trial: The jury awarded $182,737,791, and the trial judge added about $24.9 million in Pennsylvania Rule 238 prejudgment interest, bringing the judgment to $207.6 million. Pennsylvania's Superior Court unanimously affirmed the full judgment on July 10, 2025.
- $207.6 millionVerdictMedical Malpractice
$207.6 Million Verdict for Child Born With Cerebral Palsy After Penn Hospital Delayed C-Section
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.
After trial: The Pennsylvania Superior Court unanimously affirmed the $207.6 million verdict in full on July 10, 2025, rejecting the hospital's arguments on vicarious liability and remittitur. Reargument was denied that September, and it remained unclear whether the hospital would seek further review from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
- $175 millionVerdictProduct Liability
Kline & Specter Wins $175 Million Roundup Cancer Verdict Against Monsanto
A Philadelphia jury awarded Ernest Caranci $175 million after finding that decades of Roundup use caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma and that Monsanto failed to warn of the risk. Kline & Specter tried the case, the first Roundup trial in Philadelphia, and the verdict was later upheld on appeal.
After trial: Affirmed in May 2025.
- $160 millionSettlementWrongful Death
U-Haul Pays $160 Million After Overfilled Propane Tank Kills Food Truck Owner and Her Daughter
A $160 million settlement, the largest pre-verdict settlement in Pennsylvania court history, resolved claims against U-Haul after an overfilled propane tank exploded at a North Philadelphia food truck, killing a mother and her teenage daughter and severely burning three others.
After trial: The $160 million figure is a pre-trial settlement, not a jury verdict; U-Haul and the victims' families settled less than a week before trial was set to begin. The settlement was not confidential, and broke down as $69.17 million, $54.3 million, and $36.47 million to the estates involved.
Feldman Shepherd Wohlgelernter Tanner Weinstock Dodig2018 · Philadelphia Court of Common PleasRead the full story → - $124.26 millionVerdictNot collectableWrongful Death
Montgomery County Jury Awards $124.26 Million to Estate of Woman Killed by Her Husband
A Montgomery County jury awarded the estate of Ellen Gregory Robb $124.26 million in November 2014 against her husband, a former Penn economics professor who killed her in 2006 and pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter. Of the total, $100 million was punitive damages. The proceeds were for the couple's daughter, the estate's beneficiary. The award stood after Robb's post-trial challenge, though collection was limited to his retirement and investment assets.
After trial: Robb asked the trial court in December 2014 to reduce the $100 million punitive portion, and the sources reviewed report no reduction. Collection was limited: in 2019 Robb settled by giving up 75 percent of his pension and investment assets, which resolved the judgment.
Saltz Mongeluzzi & Bendesky2014 · Court of Common Pleas of Montgomery County, Norristown, PARead the full story → - $120 millionVerdictProduct Liability
Philadelphia Jury Awards $120 Million Against J&J's Ethicon Over Eroded Pelvic Mesh
A Philadelphia jury found that Ethicon negligently designed the TVT-O pelvic mesh implanted in Susan McFarland of Altoona and returned $120 million, which Kline & Specter called the largest pelvic-mesh verdict reached to that point.
After trial: Ethicon appealed. No independent source confirms how the appeal was resolved.
- $108.6 millionVerdictMedical Malpractice
$108.6 Million Verdict for Boy Brain-Injured in a 2018 Forceps Delivery at Einstein
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.
After trial: Post-trial motions are pending and Jefferson has said it will appeal. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court review granted in July 2026 in Hagans v.
- $105 millionVerdictReduced from $109 millionPaidWrongful Death
West Penn Power Faces a $109 Million Verdict in a Fatal Backyard Electrocution, Later Paid $105 Million
An Allegheny County jury found West Penn Power negligent for the splice failure that dropped a live 7,200-volt line on Carrie Goretzka in her own backyard. The 2012 verdict reached $109 million. The utility later paid a reported $105 million to drop its appeal.
After trial: West Penn Power dropped its appeal of the $109 million verdict in February 2013 and agreed to pay $105 million instead, ending the case without a court ruling on the appeal.
- $95.6 millionSettlementPremises Liability
The $227 Million Building Collapse Settlement and Mariya Plekan's $95.6 Million Award
After an unbraced brick wall toppled during a 2013 Center City demolition and crushed a Salvation Army store, Kline & Specter's Andrew J. Stern secured a $95.6 million award for survivor Mariya Plekan, the largest individual share of a record $227 million settlement.
- $85 millionVerdictPremises Liability
$85 Million Verdict for Penn Med Student Who Fell 18 Feet Into Open Center City Manhole
A Philadelphia jury awarded $85 million to a University of Pennsylvania medical student left disabled after falling 18 feet into an open Trigen Energy manhole at 19th and Walnut Streets, the largest personal injury verdict in the United States for 2008.
- $80 millionVerdictProduct Liability
Philadelphia Jury Hits J&J's Ethicon With $80 Million Over Eroded Prolift Mesh
A Philadelphia jury returned $80 million, including $50 million in punitive damages, against Johnson & Johnson and its Ethicon unit after finding the Prolift transvaginal mesh implanted in Patricia Mesigian was defective and inadequately labeled.
- $78.5 millionVerdictMedical Malpractice
$78.5 Million Verdict After Faulty Ultrasound Caused 81-Minute Delay in Emergency C-Section
A Philadelphia jury found Pottstown Memorial Medical Center liable for a newborn's severe spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy after the hospital's outdated, unmaintained ultrasound equipment led a physician to incorrectly declare the baby dead, delaying an emergency cesarean section by 81 minutes.
Feldman Shepherd Wohlgelernter Tanner Weinstock Dodig2012 · Philadelphia Court of Common PleasRead the full story → - $78 millionVerdictProduct Liability
Kline & Specter Wins $78 Million Roundup Cancer Verdict for Abington Man
A Philadelphia jury awarded William Melissen $78 million, including $75 million in punitive damages, after finding that Monsanto's Roundup weed killer was a cause of his non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Kline & Specter, with co-counsel Arnold & Itkin, tried the case, the sixth Roundup trial heard by a Philadelphia jury and the fourth to go against the company.
- $75.6 millionVerdictWorkplace Injury
$75.6 Million Verdict for Paralyzed Highway Flagman Struck by Drunk Ivyland Cafe Manager
A Philadelphia jury awarded $75.6 million to Joseph Tuski, a highway construction flagman left quadriplegic when a drunk driver who had just served himself alcohol at the bar he managed struck him at 40 mph and fled the scene.
- $57.1 millionVerdictProduct Liability
$57.1 Million Verdict Against Ethicon for Pelvic Mesh That Eroded Into a Woman's Urethra
A Philadelphia jury found that Ethicon's TVT and TVT-Secur mesh slings were defectively designed and awarded Ella Ebaugh $57.1 million, including $50 million in punitive damages, then the largest verdict in the city's pelvic mesh mass tort program. Kila Baldwin of Kline & Specter tried the case.
After trial: Ethicon appealed and the appeal was briefed into 2020, but no published opinion ever decided it and the verdict was never set aside.
- $55.33 millionVerdictProduct Liability
Quadriplegic Driver's $55.3 Million Verdict Against Honda Over a Defective Seat Belt
A Philadelphia jury found that a defectively designed seat belt in a 1999 Acura Integra left driver Carlos Martinez a quadriplegic after a rollover on Interstate 70 near Baltimore, and awarded him and his wife $55,325,714. Stewart J. Eisenberg and Daniel J. Sherry Jr., then of Eisenberg, Rothweiler, Winkler, Eisenberg & Jeck (now Eisenberg Winkler Jeck Schwartz Schoenhaus & Sherry), tried the case against Honda. The trial court denied Honda's post-trial motions and entered judgment on the full verdict plus $2,066,002 in delay damages, a molded judgment of $57,391,716. Honda appealed, arguing that a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision handed down while its post-trial motion was pending had rewritten the state's products liability standard. On April 19, 2017, the Pennsylvania Superior Court rejected every argument Honda raised and affirmed.
After trial: Affirmed. The trial court denied Honda's post-trial motions and molded the verdict to $57,391,716 with delay damages, and the Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed on April 19, 2017 (No.
Eisenberg Winkler Jeck Schwartz Schoenhaus & Sherry, P.C.2014 · Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas, Pennsylvania (affirmed by the Pennsylvania Superior Court)Read the full story → - $54.35 millionSettlementPaidProduct Liability
Teenager Burned in Philadelphia Food Truck Explosion Settles With U-Haul for $54.35 Million
A propane tank ruptured aboard a Philadelphia food truck on July 1, 2014, killing the truck's owner and her 17-year-old daughter and burning a teenage girl who was helping in the business. Less than a week before the case was set for trial, U-Haul agreed in June 2018 to pay $160 million, plus an additional confidential amount, to resolve the claims of all four victims, with $54.35 million allocated to the girl, identified in press accounts only as Jane Doe because she was still a minor. Plaintiffs' lawyers said her share was the largest settlement ever paid to a minor in Pennsylvania state court history. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that she was represented by lawyers including Thomas J. Duffy. Because she was a minor, the agreement had to be approved by a judge in the Orphans' Court division of the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas.
After trial: Settlement reached before trial and not appealed: As Jane Doe was a minor, it required approval from a Philadelphia Orphans' Court judge. U-Haul said it worked with its insurance carriers to fund the settlement and that all injured parties had been compensated.
The Duffy Firm2018 · Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas, Orphans' Court Division, PennsylvaniaRead the full story →
All Pennsylvania verdicts and settlements
72 results, largest first
Sol Weiss and Larry Coben of Anapol Weiss served as co-lead class counsel in the landmark NFL concussion multidistrict litigation, securing a settlement valued at nearly $1 billion for thousands of retired players diagnosed with serious neurological conditions.
A Philadelphia jury awarded roughly $976.5 million, including $800 million in punitive damages, after the rip-stitch seat belt in Francis Amagasu's 1992 Mitsubishi 3000GT tore during a rollover and left him quadriplegic. Daniel Sherry Jr., Nancy Winkler, and Jessica Colliver tried the case for the firm then known as Eisenberg, Rothweiler, Winkler, Eisenberg & Jeck, with co-counsel Kyle Farrar and Wes Ball of Houston's Kaster Lynch Farrar & Ball. On December 22, 2025 the Pennsylvania Superior Court vacated the judgment, which had grown to over $1 billion with delay damages, and ordered a new trial over the jury instructions. The retrial had not yet taken place as of this writing.
In July 1999, a Philadelphia jury awarded $907 million against Ira Einhorn for the 1977 killing of his girlfriend, Helen 'Holly' Maddux, in a civil wrongful death and survival action filed by her family. Einhorn was a fugitive living in France at the time and sent no attorney, so the court directed a verdict for the family on liability and left the six-member jury to decide damages alone. The jury deliberated a little over an hour before returning $752 million in punitive damages and $155 million in compensatory damages. Firm founder James E. Beasley represented the Maddux family. The suit was never intended to collect money from a fugitive with no assets; it was filed to stop Einhorn from profiting off book or movie deals about the case.
Steven Marks and Ricardo Martinez-Cid of Podhurst Orseck served on the NFL Concussion Litigation Plaintiffs' Executive Committee, helping negotiate an uncapped settlement projected to exceed $1 billion for more than 20,000 retired players suffering traumatic brain injuries.
A Philadelphia jury awarded $725.5 million to former Mobil service station mechanic Paul Gill, who developed acute myeloid leukemia after years of cleaning car parts with benzene-containing gasoline and solvents, in what was reported as the largest benzene verdict in U.S. history; the court later added over $90 million in delay damages while ExxonMobil's appeal remains pending.
A Philadelphia jury found that Monsanto failed to warn that Roundup could cause cancer and awarded John McKivison $2.25 billion. The trial judge later reduced the award to $400 million.
After Amtrak Train 188 derailed in Philadelphia in May 2015, killing eight and injuring more than 200, Kline & Specter's Thomas R. Kline led the plaintiffs' negotiations that produced a $265 million settlement fund for the victims.
A Pennsylvania-record $227 million settlement resolved claims brought by 19 victims of the June 2013 Center City building collapse, in which an improperly braced wall fell during demolition and crushed the adjoining Salvation Army thrift store, killing seven people.
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.
A Philadelphia jury found that Walmart had denied nearly 188,000 Pennsylvania workers paid rest breaks and pay for off-the-clock hours, and the judgment entered on that verdict grew to roughly $188 million.
A Philadelphia jury awarded Ernest Caranci $175 million after finding that decades of Roundup use caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma and that Monsanto failed to warn of the risk. Kline & Specter tried the case, the first Roundup trial in Philadelphia, and the verdict was later upheld on appeal.
A $160 million settlement, the largest pre-verdict settlement in Pennsylvania court history, resolved claims against U-Haul after an overfilled propane tank exploded at a North Philadelphia food truck, killing a mother and her teenage daughter and severely burning three others.
A Montgomery County jury awarded the estate of Ellen Gregory Robb $124.26 million in November 2014 against her husband, a former Penn economics professor who killed her in 2006 and pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter. Of the total, $100 million was punitive damages. The proceeds were for the couple's daughter, the estate's beneficiary. The award stood after Robb's post-trial challenge, though collection was limited to his retirement and investment assets.
A Philadelphia jury found that Ethicon negligently designed the TVT-O pelvic mesh implanted in Susan McFarland of Altoona and returned $120 million, which Kline & Specter called the largest pelvic-mesh verdict reached to that point.
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.
An Allegheny County jury found West Penn Power negligent for the splice failure that dropped a live 7,200-volt line on Carrie Goretzka in her own backyard. The 2012 verdict reached $109 million. The utility later paid a reported $105 million to drop its appeal.
After an unbraced brick wall toppled during a 2013 Center City demolition and crushed a Salvation Army store, Kline & Specter's Andrew J. Stern secured a $95.6 million award for survivor Mariya Plekan, the largest individual share of a record $227 million settlement.
A Philadelphia jury awarded $85 million to a University of Pennsylvania medical student left disabled after falling 18 feet into an open Trigen Energy manhole at 19th and Walnut Streets, the largest personal injury verdict in the United States for 2008.
A Philadelphia jury returned $80 million, including $50 million in punitive damages, against Johnson & Johnson and its Ethicon unit after finding the Prolift transvaginal mesh implanted in Patricia Mesigian was defective and inadequately labeled.
A Philadelphia jury found Pottstown Memorial Medical Center liable for a newborn's severe spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy after the hospital's outdated, unmaintained ultrasound equipment led a physician to incorrectly declare the baby dead, delaying an emergency cesarean section by 81 minutes.
A Philadelphia jury awarded William Melissen $78 million, including $75 million in punitive damages, after finding that Monsanto's Roundup weed killer was a cause of his non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Kline & Specter, with co-counsel Arnold & Itkin, tried the case, the sixth Roundup trial heard by a Philadelphia jury and the fourth to go against the company.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.