Vermont Personal Injury Verdicts and Settlements

A Chittenden County jury returned $43,101,162 against Johnson Controls, the seat manufacturer, after a Vermont woman was left with a catastrophic spinal-cord injury when the single-sided recliner mechanism in her car seat collapsed during a rear-end collision she should have survived. The trial court entered final judgment at $36,948,123, and the appeal was later dismissed by stipulation.

A Vermont jury awarded $22.5 million, the second-largest verdict in state history at the time, to a Maine utility lineman who lost both legs below the knee after an ungrounded, defectively installed air-break switch at a Richford substation released a 5,000-degree electrical arc through his body.

A Tunbridge, Vermont man had his left testicle removed for Stage 1 testicular cancer in May 2020 and was placed on surveillance imaging instead of chemotherapy or radiation. Through 2021 he repeatedly reported worsening pain and urinary trouble, but his urologist declined to see him for eight months, and a metastatic tumor visible on his January and April 2021 scans went unidentified. A Vermont jury found Dartmouth Hitchcock Health, Dartmouth Hitchcock Clinic and Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital liable for medical malpractice and awarded $1,400,000 in February 2026, while rejecting a separate implied-consent claim. Post-trial motions were pending at last report.

On September 9, 1990, James Ulm was riding as a passenger in a 1978 Ford Bronco on a dirt road above Wilmington, Vermont, when the driver lost steering control and the Bronco rolled, breaking Ulm's back and leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. Ulm sued Ford Motor Company, arguing the Bronco's steering system was defectively designed, and a Windham Superior Court jury returned a $1,250,000 verdict in his favor. After the trial court credited pretrial settlements and added prejudgment interest, the final judgment rose to $1,290,460.52. Ford appealed, and the Vermont Supreme Court affirmed the judgment in full, also rejecting a subrogation claim brought by Ulm's health plan.

Alfred Heekin, 84, suffered severe brain injuries on January 7, 2000, when he swerved to avoid a wrong-lane escort vehicle and struck an oversized manufactured home a Bennett Truck Transport rig was hauling across both lanes of Route 9 in Bennington, Vermont. He died nineteen months later. His widow, Marion Heekin, sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont, and the Bennington firm now known as BarrSternberg took the case to a jury trial before Judge J. Garvan Murtha. On the third day of trial, with Marion Heekin about to testify, Bennett agreed to pay $1,200,000 to settle the wrongful death claim. Vermont imposes no cap on wrongful death damages, and because the case settled before verdict, the full amount stood with no appeal.

In October 2012, a 14-year-old Milton High School freshman was sexually assaulted by football teammates during a hazing ritual at a team dinner, despite the Milton Town School District's prior knowledge of hazing and sexual assaults within the program. A Chittenden County jury found the District 60 percent negligent and awarded $280,000, but also assigned 40 percent of the fault to the freshman himself. The trial court later concluded it had erred in letting the jury weigh the victim's own fault in a sexual assault case, and granted a new trial unless the District accepted an additur of $186,666, bringing the total judgment to $466,666. The Vermont Supreme Court affirmed in 2021. The case later prompted Vermont to bar the comparative-negligence defense entirely in negligence claims arising from a sexual assault.