Largest Truck Accident Personal Injury Verdicts Never Collected

A Nassau County jury found two trucking companies responsible for the 2017 chain-reaction crash on I-95 near Yulee that killed 18-year-old Connor Dzion, returning a $1 billion verdict that Curry Pajcic won for the teen's parents.

A Titus County jury awarded $730 million to the family of Toni Combest, a 73-year-old great-grandmother killed when a Landstar Ranger truck hauling a 197,000-pound Navy submarine propeller struck her car on a narrow Highway 271 bridge, though the family's actual recovery came from pretrial settlements: $50 million from Landstar Ranger and $1 million from escort company S&M Pilot Service, with the verdict itself returned against the small front-escort company 2A Pilot Cars.

On February 13, 2016, 21-year-old Riley McPherson was killed on U.S. 271 near Gilmer, Texas, when his van struck the side of a Jefferson Trucking flatbed tractor-trailer that was blocking all four lanes of the highway while its driver, on hour 17 of a run home from Ohio, tried to back it into a private driveway. McPherson's parents, Eddie McPherson and Karen Pearson, sued Jefferson Trucking, driver Eric Wayne Jefferson, and Timothy Wayne Jefferson in the 115th District Court of Upshur County. On November 8, 2018, a jury apportioned 65 percent fault to Eric Jefferson, 20 percent to Jefferson Trucking, 10 percent to Timothy Jefferson, and 5 percent to McPherson, and set damages at $260 million, which the comparative-fault finding reduced to $247 million. The defendants appealed, then voluntarily dismissed their own appeal, leaving the trial court judgment intact.

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 Los Angeles County jury awarded $150,750,000 against truck driver Rudolph Ortiz and Bhandal Bros. Trucking for a girl who was orphaned when her family's SUV struck an 18-wheeler parked without lights on the shoulder of the 210 Freeway and caught fire, killing her parents and eldest brother. Brian Brandt tried the case for the plaintiff. The verdict did not stand: on February 3, 2014, Judge Marc Marmaro granted the defense a new trial, finding the award excessive, and the case then settled in April 2014 on confidential terms before any retrial.

A Nassau County jury awarded $141.5 million, including $125 million in punitive damages, against K&N Logging after an unvetted driver's 80,000-pound log truck plowed into stopped school-zone traffic and left a young child with permanent brain damage.

A 39-year-old man was left quadriplegic in 2017 when an 18-wheeler struck his vehicle on Highway 259 near Ore City in Upshur County, Texas. The case went to trial, where evidence showed the truck's driver, Dijuana Smith, had been involved in multiple crashes before the wreck, and where attorneys said she had violated state and federal trucking regulations. Goudarzi & Young, L.L.P., of Gilmer, Texas, represented the injured man, and the parties reached a $140 million settlement in July 2019. The firm, and later a Lawdragon profile of managing partner Brent Goudarzi, both described it as the largest settlement for a single plaintiff in American legal history. The identities of the plaintiff and the trucking company were not publicly disclosed.

A unanimous Dimmit County jury awarded $281 million, including $181 million in compensatory damages and $100 million in punitive damages, to the family of Carlos Aguilar, a 31-year-old Army veteran and father of seven killed when a drive shaft broke off a Heckmann Water Resources 18-wheeler and crashed through the windshield of the pickup he was riding in. Gene S. Hagood of Alvin tried the case with Laredo co-counsel John R. Solis and Jose Luis Castillo. The honest frame: the trial court reduced the judgment to $163.8 million and then to $105.2 million on post-trial motions, and in July 2014 the case settled on confidential terms, with parent company Nuverra disclosing it funded $5.5 million of the settlement alongside an undisclosed insurer payment.

A Wayne County jury awarded $96 million to the widow of a New Jersey father and his college-baseball-star son, both killed when a Challenger Motor Freight semi rear-ended their SUV in a Detroit-area construction zone while the driver was on three Parkinson's disease medications that warned against operating heavy equipment.

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 retrial jury in Utah's Fourth District Court awarded $81 million against Beacon Roofing Supply after one of its trucks struck and killed a 12-year-old boy who was crossing legally in a marked crosswalk.

On July 18, 2016, a Schnitzer Southeast tractor-trailer crossed the center line of U.S. Highway 80 in Russell County, Alabama, and killed five members of one family in a head-on collision, including Judy Madere, 58. A Muscogee County State Court jury in Columbus, Georgia found Schnitzer Southeast and its parent, Schnitzer Steel Industries, liable and returned a $280,065,000 verdict for Madere's death on August 23, 2019, reported at the time as the largest wrongful death verdict against a trucking company. Schnitzer said it would appeal, but instead of litigating the verdict, it resolved Madere's suit together with her twin sister Trudy Hebert's separate, still pending suit from the same crash for a combined $68 million in the following fiscal quarter, according to Schnitzer's SEC filings. Three earlier suits from the same crash, brought by the estates of the two children and their mother, had already settled for $35 million combined. The individual amounts within the $68 million settlement are not public.

A Clay County, Missouri jury awarded $65 million to a child who suffered a permanent brain injury before birth when a UPS delivery truck struck his mother's car while she was 13 weeks pregnant. With prejudgment interest, the judgment came to roughly $75.3 million, and the Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed it in May 2025.

A Middlesex County jury awarded Malcolm Carnwath $56 million -- the largest single-plaintiff personal-injury verdict in Massachusetts history -- after an Amazon delivery driver fell asleep, crossed the center line on a Portsmouth, New Hampshire road, and struck his vehicle head-on, causing a leg amputation, multiple strokes, and permanent brain injury.

An Essex County jury awarded $55 million to Angel May Rider, a young barista who lost both legs after a tractor trailer owned by Jersey City Transfer and Alert Motor Freight jackknifed on a rain-slicked stretch of I-95 and pinned her against a guardrail. Reported as the largest verdict in Essex County history, the award was affirmed in full by the New Jersey Appellate Division in May 2026.

A Citrus County jury awarded $54.1 million to the family of Jeffery Hindalong, killed when a Freightliner bucket truck driven by a tree-service employee swerved across the center line into his vehicle. Morgan & Morgan partner Jonathan Brozyna and the firm's trial team took the case to verdict after the family turned down a $2 million settlement offer.

A Los Angeles County jury awarded $53.7 million to two brothers left with traumatic brain injuries after a CRST big rig crossed the center line on State Route 14 and hit their car head-on.

A Winnebago County jury awarded $52 million to the Krischon family for a 2018 crash caused by an off-tracking Panera Bread semi-truck that killed an 88-year-old man and seriously injured his son, finding the company and its driver 90 percent at fault. The award was part of a $67 million total verdict that also compensated a second family represented by separate counsel.

An Ector County jury found OPG Logistics, LLC and its driver, Biorkys Sanchez Fernandez, grossly negligent in a January 2025 collision on FM 307 near Midland, Texas, that killed 29-year-old Steffan Robert Mick, a husband, father of two young children, and maintenance technician at ProPetro Services. In May 2026 the jury awarded Mick's widow, children, and parents a combined $49 million, including $40.5 million in compensatory damages and $8.5 million in punitive damages, after evidence showed Sanchez had been on duty more than 15 hours and driving more than 12 without a break at the time of the crash. Jurors assigned 65 percent of responsibility to OPG Logistics and 35 percent to Sanchez. Rob Ammons and Elizabeth H. Lawrence of The Ammons Law Firm, with co-counsel Brian Carney, represented the family.

A Van Nuys jury held the City of Los Angeles responsible for catastrophic injuries to a pedestrian struck inside a marked Encino crosswalk by a city sanitation truck.

A Schneider National Carriers truck driver who had gone roughly 22 hours without consistent sleep swerved across multiple lanes of Interstate 285 in Atlanta before dawn on August 17, 2017, forcing a pickup into the left lane and onto the emergency lane, where it struck and killed Jarvis Nance Sr., a 35-year-old owner-operator standing beside his own disabled tractor. Nance's widow sued Schneider and the driver in Cherokee County State Court, and on June 7, 2024, after a five-day trial, the jury awarded $47 million in compensatory damages and assigned 100 percent of the fault to the defendants. Schneider has appealed to the Georgia Court of Appeals, which heard oral argument in June 2026 on a cross-examination ruling, the jury instructions, and closing argument conduct. No decision has issued.

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 Clark County jury returned $38.8 million against Republic Services after one of its garbage trucks turned through a marked crosswalk and struck and killed an 11-year-old girl who was crossing with the walk signal.

A Cook County jury awarded the Yoder family $38.3 million after a multi-truck pileup on Interstate 90 near Rockford killed their four-year-old daughter and left their two-year-old son permanently disabled, and the verdict survived appeal in 2008.