Top Product Liability Personal Injury Recoveries Confirmed Paid
Personal injury results for product liability cases where the record shows the money was paid, or the defendant is an insurer or institution that pays, ranked by amount.
- $150 millionVerdictReduced from $368.6 millionPaidCA
The $368.6 Million Explorer Rollover Verdict Against Ford, the First Plaintiff Win in an Explorer Rollover Trial, Remitted to $150 Million by the Trial Court and Finally Resolved at an $82.6 Million Judgment After the U.S. Supreme Court Declined Review in 2009
In June 2004 a San Diego jury ordered Ford Motor Co. to pay $368.6 million to Benetta Buell-Wilson, a San Diego mother of two left paralyzed when her 1997 Explorer rolled four and a half times and the roof crushed onto her neck. It was Ford's first trial loss in an Explorer rollover case after a long string of defense verdicts. The honest frame: the trial court cut the award to $150 million, the Court of Appeal reduced it to $82.6 million in 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court sent it back after Philip Morris v. Williams, the Court of Appeal reinstated the $82.6 million in 2008, and Ford paid the judgment, with interest that pushed the punitive portion to about $87 million, after the Supreme Court declined review in late 2009. Dennis Schoville of Schoville & Arnell was lead trial counsel. The firm is no longer in active practice, and this page documents the case as part of the public record.
After trial: Remitted to $150 million by the trial court, reduced to $82.6 million on appeal in 2006, reinstated after two U.S. Supreme Court trips, and final when certiorari was denied in November 2009; Ford paid the judgment with interest.
Schoville & Arnell, LLP2004 · Superior Court, San Diego County, CARead the full story → - $60 millionVerdictPaidFL
$60 Million Verdict Over Fatal Gas Tank Fire Upheld On Appeal
A Broward County jury awarded Robert and Connie McGee and their daughter $60 million in 1998 after the fuel tank of the station wagon they were riding in was punctured and exploded in a low speed collision, killing the couple's 13 year old son and severely burning the three of them. General Motors defended the tank as safe. The jury found the automaker liable for the burns caused by the fire and declined to award punitive damages. A trial court setoff briefly cut the family's recovery to about $33 million for the fault the jury assigned to the driver whose trailer broke loose, but Florida's Fourth District Court of Appeal vacated that reduction, holding that comparative fault does not reduce damages for the enhanced injuries caused by a defective fuel tank, and the full verdict was entered by amended final judgment in 2003. A second appeal, decided in 2004, confirmed that interest runs from the May 18, 1998 verdict date.
After trial: General Motors appealed twice. The Fourth District Court of Appeal's decision of December 18, 2002, as modified on clarification on March 5, 2003, affirmed liability and the amount of the award, affirmed the jury's denial of punitive damages, and vacated the trial court reduction that had cut the McGees' recovery to about $33 million for the fault assigned to the driver whose trailer broke loose, holding that comparative fault does not reduce damages for the enhanced injuries caused by a defective fuel tank.
Kelley | Uustal Trial Attorneys1998 · Circuit Court for the 17th Judicial Circuit, Broward County, Florida (affirmed, Fourth District Court of Appeal)Read the full story → - $56.01 millionVerdictReduced from $1.04 billionPaidCA
Livermore Retiree Whose Lymphoma Spread to Her Brain Holds a $56 Million Roundup Judgment Through the U.S. Supreme Court
Alberta Pilliod, a retired teacher and school administrator from Livermore, sprayed Roundup on the couple's properties for nearly 30 years and was diagnosed in April 2015 with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma in her central nervous system, which recurred in her brain in 2016. On May 13, 2019, an Alameda County jury awarded her about $37.2 million in compensatory damages and $1 billion in punitive damages, alongside a separate award to her husband. Judge Winifred Smith reduced her judgment to $56,005,830, the Court of Appeal affirmed in August 2021, and the California Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court both declined to disturb it.
After trial: The jury's $1.0372 billion award to Alberta Pilliod was reduced by the trial court on Monsanto's new-trial motion under Code of Civil Procedure section 662.5: noneconomic damages were recalculated on the trial evidence and punitive damages were capped at a four-to-one ratio under State Farm v. Campbell, producing a judgment of $56,005,830 that she accepted.
Wisner Baum LLP2019 · Alameda County Superior Court, Oakland (Judge Winifred Y. Smith)Read the full story → - $56 millionSettlementPaidGA
Autoliv Settles $127 Million Seatbelt Defect Judgment for $56 Million After Abandoning Its Appeal
On April 12, 2013, Micah Andrews, 38, died on Interstate 575 north of Atlanta when he swerved to miss a snapping turtle in the road, ran off the shoulder into trees at about 35 miles an hour, and was killed inside a crash he should have survived: his airbag did not deploy and his Autoliv designed seatbelt spooled out about 20 inches of webbing, letting his face hit the steering wheel hub hard enough to fracture the base of his skull. His widow, Jamie Andrews, sued Autoliv and Mazda in 2014, Mazda settled its own part of the case confidentially in June 2016, and Jim Butler of Butler Prather LLP tried the case with co counsel to a bench verdict before U.S. District Judge Steve C. Jones, who found the seatbelt defectively designed and entered a $127,019,343.40 judgment at the end of December 2021, including $100 million in punitive damages. Autoliv appealed to the Eleventh Circuit, arguing the punitive award was excessive under Georgia law, then abandoned that appeal and paid $56 million to close the case on July 27, 2023, of which $42 million went to Jamie Andrews and $14 million went to the State of Georgia, which had claimed a share of the punitive award.
After trial: Autoliv first attacked the $100 million punitive award in the district court in January 2022, arguing Georgia law did not support an award of that size without proof of willful misconduct. In October 2022 Judge Jones added roughly $4.7 million in prejudgment interest to Autoliv's approximately $113.5 million share of the judgment.
Butler Prather LLP2023 · U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta DivisionRead the full story → - $54.35 millionSettlementPaidPA
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: The settlement was reached before trial and was not appealed. Because Jane Doe was a minor, it required approval from a Philadelphia Orphans' Court judge.
The Duffy Firm2018 · Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas, Orphans' Court Division, PennsylvaniaRead the full story → - $30.74 millionVerdictReduced from $1.02 billionPaidCA
Livermore Man Diagnosed With Stage IV Lymphoma After Decades of Roundup Use Holds a $30.7 Million Judgment
Alva Pilliod mixed and sprayed Roundup on the family's Livermore-area properties from 1982 until illness stopped him in 2011, the year he was diagnosed at 69 with stage IV diffuse large B-cell lymphoma in his bones. On May 13, 2019, an Alameda County jury awarded him about $18 million in compensatory damages and $1 billion in punitive damages, alongside a separate award to his wife. Judge Winifred Smith reduced his judgment to $30,736,480, the Court of Appeal affirmed in August 2021, and the California and U.S. Supreme Courts declined review.
After trial: The jury's $1.018 billion award to Alva Pilliod was reduced by the trial court on Monsanto's new-trial motion under Code of Civil Procedure section 662.5: noneconomic damages were recalculated on the trial evidence and punitive damages were capped at a four-to-one ratio under State Farm v. Campbell, producing a judgment of $30,736,480 that he accepted.
Wisner Baum LLP2019 · Alameda County Superior Court, Oakland (Judge Winifred Y. Smith)Read the full story → - $25.27 millionVerdictReduced from $80.3 millionPaidCA
Sonoma County Man's Roundup Cancer Case Ends in $25.3 Million Judgment After an $80 Million Verdict
Edwin Hardeman, 70, sprayed Roundup on his Sonoma County property for about 26 years and was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2015. In the first federal Roundup bellwether trial, a unanimous San Francisco jury found in March 2019 that the herbicide was a substantial factor in his cancer and that Monsanto failed to warn, awarding $5,267,634 in compensatory damages and $75 million in punitive damages. Judge Vince Chhabria cut the punitive award to $20 million as constitutionally excessive, leaving a $25,267,634 judgment. The Ninth Circuit affirmed in May 2021 and the U.S. Supreme Court denied Monsanto's petition in June 2022.
After trial: The jury's $75,000,000 punitive award was reduced to $20,000,000 by the district court on July 15, 2019 as constitutionally excessive under the due process guideposts of BMW v. Gore and State Farm v.
Wagstaff Law Firm2019 · U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San FranciscoRead the full story → - $23.72 millionVerdictReduced from $296.2 millionPaidCA
The $296 Million Bronco Rollover Verdict Against Ford, Tried by the Firm's Now Retired Founder Joe Carcione Jr. and Ultimately Paid Out at $23.7 Million After Four Years of Appeals
A Stanislaus County jury awarded $6,226,793 in compensatory damages and $290 million in punitive damages against Ford Motor Company after a 1978 Bronco rolled over and its roof collapsed, killing three members of the Romo family and orphaning three children. Joseph W. Carcione Jr., the retired founder of the practice that continues today as Carcione, Henderson & Markowitz, tried the case. The punitive award was cut to $23,723,287 in 2003 after the U.S. Supreme Court's State Farm v. Campbell decision, and Ford paid the reduced judgment.
After trial: The punitive award was reduced to $23,723,287 in 2003 after State Farm v. Campbell; Ford paid the reduced judgment plus compensatory damages and interest in 2004.
Carcione, Henderson & Markowitz, LLP1999 · Stanislaus County Superior Court, Modesto, CaliforniaRead the full story → - $20.51 millionVerdictReduced from $289.3 millionPaidCA
Benicia School Groundskeeper Wins the First Roundup Cancer Verdict Against Monsanto
Dewayne "Lee" Johnson sprayed Monsanto's Ranger Pro and Roundup Pro on Benicia school grounds for two to three years, was soaked by a burst hose in 2014, and was diagnosed that October with mycosis fungoides, a rare non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. In August 2018 a San Francisco jury found Monsanto liable for failure to warn and design defect and returned $289.25 million, the first Roundup cancer verdict in the country. The trial judge cut punitive damages to match compensatory damages, for $78.5 million, and the Court of Appeal in July 2020 reduced the award to $20.5 million while affirming liability and malice. The California Supreme Court denied review in October 2020 and Bayer paid the judgment late that year.
After trial: The jury's $289.25 million verdict was reduced twice. The trial court cut punitive damages from $250 million to $39.25 million on due-process grounds (one-to-one ratio), which Johnson accepted, leaving $78.5 million.
Wisner Baum LLP2018 · San Francisco County Superior Court, San Francisco (Judge Suzanne Ramos Bolanos), Case No. CGC-16-550128Read the full story → - $11 millionVerdictPaidFL
Jacksonville Jury Awards $11 Million to Smoker Who Needed Two Lung Transplants
A Duval County, Florida jury awarded longtime smoker Elaine Jordan $11 million in August 2015, finding that Philip Morris USA concealed the dangers and addictive nature of cigarettes and that the resulting chronic obstructive pulmonary disease led to her two lung transplants and a later kidney transplant. The verdict included $7,795,000 in compensatory damages and $3,205,000 in punitive damages. Jurors also found Philip Morris 60 percent at fault and Jordan 40 percent at fault. Philip Morris appealed and lost at every stage: Florida's First District Court of Appeal affirmed in April 2018, the United States Supreme Court denied review in February 2019, and a later appeal of the attorney fee award Jordan won failed as well. The $11 million stands as rendered in 2015.
After trial: Philip Morris appealed the final judgment. The First District Court of Appeal affirmed per curiam on April 3, 2018 (case 1D15-5871) and denied rehearing on May 29, 2018, and the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari on February 25, 2019 (No.
All product liability verdicts and settlements
215 results, largest first
Sullivan Papain was among the firms representing New York State against Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, and Lorillard, securing a $25 billion recovery through the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement.
Wayne Hogan served on the private-counsel team that secured a then-record $11.3 billion settlement from five major cigarette manufacturers, reimbursing Florida's Medicaid program for decades of smoking-related medical costs.
C. Steven Yerrid, the youngest of Florida's 11-lawyer 'Dream Team,' added racketeering and conspiracy charges that tripled the damages ceiling, helping the state secure what was then the largest civil settlement in American history against the tobacco industry.
As co-lead counsel in the federal Roundup multidistrict litigation and the first firm to sue Monsanto in 2015, Weitz and Luxenberg helped negotiate a $10.9 billion settlement resolving approximately 125,000 non-Hodgkin lymphoma claims against Bayer-owned Monsanto.
A Philadelphia jury awarded $8 billion in punitive damages against Johnson & Johnson over Risperdal and male breast growth in a young patient, an award the trial judge later reduced to $6.8 million.
After fifteen years of litigation and three failed bankruptcy maneuvers by Johnson and Johnson subsidiaries, Ashcraft and Gerel attorneys R. Bryant McCulley and Michelle Parfitt helped negotiate a global, uncapped settlement of at least $5.5 billion covering approximately 76,000 ovarian-cancer claims.
As chair of the plaintiffs' negotiating committee and Liaison Counsel in the Vioxx multidistrict litigation, Russ Herman directed the negotiations that produced a $4.85 billion settlement with Merck resolving approximately 45,000 to 50,000 personal-injury claims.
Merck agreed in November 2007 to pay $4.85 billion to resolve more than 47,000 personal injury claims tied to Vioxx, the painkiller the company pulled from the market in 2004 after studies linked it to heart attacks and strokes, with Beasley Allen serving as one of the lead plaintiffs firms in the litigation.
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.
A Clark County jury awarded $3.8 billion against Real Water on March 21, 2025, after finding the Las Vegas alkaline water company liable for poisoning consumers with hydrazine-contaminated product that caused acute liver failure, autoimmune disease, and death.
Acting as outside trial counsel for Los Angeles County, the firm then known as Greene, Broillet, Taylor, Wheeler and Panish helped recover approximately $3.3 billion for the county through the 1998 nationwide Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement.
A federal jury in Columbus, Georgia awarded $30.5 million in compensatory damages and $2.5 billion in punitive damages against Ford Motor Company for the deaths of Herman and Debra Mills, killed when the roof of their 2015 F-250 Super Duty crushed down on them in a rollover. Butler Prather LLP tried the case, with James E. Butler Jr., Ramsey Prather, Daniel Philyaw, and Allison Bailey on the trial team. The honest frame: Ford called the verdict impermissibly extreme, moved for a new trial, and in September 2025 settled this case and the related $1.7 billion Hill case on confidential terms, so the verdict was never collected as awarded.
Ellen Relkin served as court-appointed co-lead plaintiffs counsel in the DePuy ASR hip implant MDL, helping negotiate a $2.5 billion settlement for roughly 8,000 patients who required revision surgery after the metal-on-metal device failed.
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 Cobb County, Georgia jury found that Monsanto's Roundup caused John Barnes's non-Hodgkin lymphoma and awarded him $2.065 billion, with Arnold & Itkin's Kyle Findley serving as lead trial lawyer.
Frantz Law Group, led by attorneys James Frantz and William Shinoff, represented nearly 1,000 public school districts across 38 states in multidistrict litigation against JUUL Labs, reaching a $1.7 billion settlement in 2023 that covered approximately 1,600 school districts, local governments, tribal entities, and individual consumers.
A Gwinnett County jury awarded roughly $24 million in compensatory damages and $1.7 billion in punitive damages against Ford Motor Company for the 2014 rollover deaths of Melvin and Voncile Hill in a 2002 F-250, with James E. Butler Jr. of Butler Prather LLP as lead trial counsel; the Georgia Court of Appeals vacated the judgment in November 2024 and ordered a new trial, and Ford settled the case on confidential terms in September 2025 before a third trial could begin.
A Cole County jury returned $1.56 billion in November 2023 across four plaintiffs whose claims were consolidated for one trial: three Roundup users who developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma and the wife of one of them on a loss of consortium claim. The trial court later cut the punitive awards to roughly nine times each plaintiff's compensatory damages, bringing the judgment down to about $611 million, and the Missouri appellate courts left that judgment standing.
A Los Angeles jury ordered General Motors to pay $4.9 billion after six people, including four children, were trapped and severely burned when the defectively placed fuel tank on a 1979 Chevy Malibu ruptured in a rear-end crash on Christmas Eve 1993.
On July 9, 1999, a Los Angeles County jury found General Motors liable for the fuel tank design of a 1979 Chevrolet Malibu that caught fire after a drunk driver rear-ended the car on Christmas Eve 1993, severely burning Patricia Anderson, her four children and family friend Jo Tigner. The jury awarded $107.6 million in compensatory damages and $4.8 billion in punitive damages, at the time the largest personal injury award in the country. Superior Court Judge Ernest G. Williams later cut the punitive award to $1.09 billion, leaving the compensatory award intact for a total of about $1.2 billion, while backing the jury's finding that General Motors had positioned the tank to protect profit rather than passengers. General Motors said it would appeal the reduced judgment. No appellate decision in the case was ever published, and what General Motors ultimately paid was never made public.
A Los Angeles jury ordered General Motors to pay $4.9 billion after a 1979 Chevrolet Malibu's rear-mounted fuel tank ruptured and burned six occupants in a rear-end crash, the largest US personal-injury verdict at the time.
Retained as outside counsel to the Nevada Attorney General, Eglet Adams drove more than $1.1 billion in opioid settlements across 12 agreements with over 40 defendants, including Walgreens, McKesson, AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and Johnson & Johnson.
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. The honest frame: 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.
On October 6, 2025, a Los Angeles County jury ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $966 million to the family of Mae K. Moore, a mother of three who died of mesothelioma in December 2021 at age 88 after decades of using the company's talc-based Baby Powder and Shower to Shower. The award comprised $16 million in compensatory damages and $950 million in punitive damages, reported at the time as the largest talc-mesothelioma verdict ever returned against Johnson & Johnson. The honest frame: on March 13, 2026, the trial judge, Ruth Ann Kwan, vacated the entire $950 million punitive award, finding the malice showing insufficient, while leaving the $16 million compensatory judgment intact. Both sides have said they will appeal. Dean Omar Branham Shirley tried the case for the Moore family, and this page documents it as part of the public record.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.