Top Workplace Injury Personal Injury Recoveries Confirmed Paid
Personal injury results for workplace injury cases where the record shows the money was paid, or the defendant is an insurer or institution that pays, ranked by amount.
- $33.1 millionVerdictReduced from $102.1 millionPaidNY
$102.1 Million Verdict Against Live Nation for a Worker Hit by a Forklift at Jones Beach
A Manhattan jury awarded Mark Perez approximately $102.1 million against Live Nation Worldwide for the traumatic brain injury he suffered when a forklift struck the vendor booth he was building at the Jones Beach Theater, though the courts later cut the award sharply: the Appellate Division reduced pain and suffering to $20 million (still the largest such award ever sustained on appeal in New York), and court records show the case ultimately resolved for about $55 million including interest.
After trial: Reduced on appeal: in 2021 the First Department cut past and future pain and suffering to $20 million, leaving about $33.1 million in compensatory damages, which is the figure ranked. With prejudgment interest the recovery came to roughly $55 million, and it was paid.
- $28 millionSettlementPaidNJ
$28 Million Settlement for Electrician Burned Over 60 Percent of His Body in Newark Panel Explosion
Carlos Gomez was burned over 60 percent of his body when an electrical panel exploded while he worked in a Newark office building in 2019. His suit against IDT Corp. and other defendants settled for $28 million, approved by the Essex County Superior Court in February 2023 and ranked by the New Jersey Law Journal as the largest reported New Jersey personal injury settlement of the court's 2022-2023 term.
After trial: A court-approved settlement, so there is no appeal and no post-trial reduction. The agreement was reached in 2022 and approved in Essex County in February 2023.
- $21.47 millionVerdictReduced from $22.5 millionPaidIL
Chicago Railroad Conductor Wins $21.4 Million After Foot Crushed Between Railcars
Michael Parsons, a Norfolk Southern conductor, had his left foot crushed between two railcars at the company's 51st/55th Street yard in Chicago after 2010 track work narrowed the clearance between two adjacent tracks to as little as 10 feet 6 inches. A Cook County jury found Parsons zero percent negligent and awarded $22,474,102 in November 2015. The trial court ordered a $1 million remittitur from the lost-earnings portion of the award, which Parsons accepted, reducing the judgment to $21,474,102. The Illinois Appellate Court affirmed that judgment in August 2017, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied Norfolk Southern's petition for further review in October 2018.
After trial: Reduced and paid. A court-ordered $1 million remittitur cut the $22,474,102 verdict, Parsons accepted it on May 4, 2016, and the $21,474,102 judgment was affirmed by the Illinois Appellate Court on August 25, 2017.
Cogan & Power, P.C.2015 · Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois (affirmed by the Illinois Appellate Court, First District)Read the full story → - $21 millionSettlementPaidNJ
Paralyzed Electrical Apprentice Reaches $21 Million Settlement Over Newark Arena Fall
Nicholas Dephillips, a 21-year-old apprentice electrician, fell about 15 feet through a drop ceiling while installing wiring for a helipad atop Newark's Prudential Center in January 2019, fracturing his cervical spine and leaving him paralyzed from the chest down. He sued his employer, Mehl Electric, general contractor Phelps Construction Group, and the arena in Superior Court of New Jersey, Essex County. In September 2021, before trial, he settled with Mehl Electric and its insurance carriers for $21 million, a figure his attorney called the largest construction site accident settlement in New Jersey at the time. His claims against Phelps went to trial in 2025, where a jury apportioned Phelps 36 percent of the liability, adding to his overall recovery from the incident.
After trial: The $21 million is the September 2021 settlement with Mehl Electric only, and it is final. A jury later found total damages of $20,080,976 against the remaining defendants on March 14, 2025, for a further $7,229,151 recovery from Phelps.
- $18 millionSettlementPaidPA
$18 Million Settlement for Tour Photographer Crushed by Runaway Forklift After Green Day Concert
Jake Chamseddine, a photographer working Green Day's Hella Mega Tour, was leaving Citizens Bank Park after the August 2021 Philadelphia show when a stagehand jumped off a moving forklift without setting the parking brake. The unmanned machine rolled down an exit ramp and crushed him against a concrete and metal post, lacerating his femoral artery and breaking his pelvis, femur, and lower back. He sued the Phillies, Live Nation, staging contractor Tri-State Stage Labor, and the forklift driver. After seven days of trial before Judge Caroline Turner, the defendants settled for $18 million on November 1, 2024, with Live Nation and Tri-State paying most of it.
After trial: Settled during trial on November 1, 2024. Live Nation and Tri-State Stage Labor are reported to be paying the majority, with the Phillies and other parties covering the remainder; the payers are institutions and insured contractors, which is why the row is tagged paid.
Stampone, O'Brien, Dilsheimer, Holloway2024 · Philadelphia County Court of Common PleasRead the full story → - $16 millionSettlementPaidGA
Runaway Railcar Costs Georgia Plant Worker Both Legs, CSX Settlement Reaches $16 Million
Douglas Burchfield, a General Mills employee at the company's cereal plant in Covington, Georgia, suffered the partial amputation of both legs when a loaded railcar rolled loose and ran him over during a routine railcar switch in June 2005. He sued CSX Transportation, which had delivered the car, arguing it put the car into service with a defective handbrake. A first jury cleared CSX, but the 11th Circuit reversed after finding the trial court had improperly let CSX show the jury a reenactment video, and a retrial jury found Burchfield zero percent negligent, CSX 100 percent negligent, and awarded him $20,559,004. CSX appealed, and while that appeal was pending the parties settled the claim for $16 million, which CSX paid.
After trial: Settled and paid. CSX appealed the retrial judgment to the Eleventh Circuit, and while the appeal was pending the parties settled for $16 million and CSX paid it.
Warshauer Woodward Atkins, LLC2012 · U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta DivisionRead the full story → - $9.3 millionPaidNE
Jury Awards Lincoln Railcar Repairer $9.3 Million After BNSF Crane Accident Left Him With Spine Injuries
Curt Thege, a BNSF carman at the Havelock Car Shop in Lincoln, was thrown from a scissor lift in June 2019 when an overhead crane hoist moved higher than the operator intended. BNSF admitted it breached its duty of care under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, leaving the jury to decide damages. After a five-day trial the jury returned $9,333,016, and on December 15, 2022 the court entered a $9,295,988.96 judgment after subtracting benefits payments the plaintiff conceded.
After trial: The court cut the judgment only by $37,027.04 in Railroad Retirement Board and sickness benefits that the plaintiff conceded, and refused to remit the jury's valuation. BNSF did not appeal, and a satisfaction of judgment was filed in January 2023.
- $4.35 millionSettlementPaidLA
$4.35 Million Settlement for DeQuincy Police Officer Burned by a Damaged CLECO Power Line
DeQuincy police corporal Randy James Henry was badly burned by a power line in November 2000 while investigating a truck crash that had left live CLECO lines sagging over the scene. He sued the utility, the driver and the driver's insurer, and nearly eight years after the accident settled with CLECO at mediation on October 23, 2008 for $4,350,000. The settlement stood; the later fight was over his employer's workers' compensation credit.
After trial: The settlement was completed and was never appealed. The later litigation was the City of DeQuincy's workers' compensation credit claim, in which the Louisiana Supreme Court held on March 15, 2011 that the City's credit against the settlement covers Henry's future medical costs as well as disability benefits.
Broussard Knoll Law Firm2008 · 14th Judicial District Court, Calcasieu Parish, LouisianaRead the full story → - $3.5 millionSettlementPaidNC
Paralyzed Tree Cutter Wins $3.5 Million From Insurers After Employee Status Ruling
A tree cutter was paralyzed from the waist down in 2008 when a tree held up only by vines fell on him near Mebane, North Carolina. Every insurer denied workers' compensation coverage, but the Industrial Commission found he was an employee. The case settled for $3.5 million while at the Court of Appeals, with AmGUARD paying $2.5 million and AIG paying $1 million.
After trial: The case was argued at the N.C. Court of Appeals in March 2015 and settled on May 18, 2015, before an opinion issued, with AmGUARD paying $2.5 million and AIG $1 million.
Hardison & Cochran2015 · North Carolina Industrial Commission and North Carolina Court of Appeals, RaleighRead the full story → - $2.8 millionSettlementPaidNJ
Longshoreman Injured When Rusted Ship Deck Bracket Failed Settles Mid-Trial in Hudson County
James Jordan, a 42-year-old longshoreman, was hurt in June 2012 when a section of deck on the MV Ever Decent gave way at the Port of Elizabeth. He herniated a disc at L5-S1 and needed a laminectomy and fusion. After eight days of trial in Hudson County, the vessel owner's insurer settled the case for $2.8 million in March 2015.
After trial: The case settled during trial, so there was no verdict or appeal. The settlement was paid by the vessel owner's insurance carrier.
Ginarte Gonzalez & Winograd, LLP2015 · Superior Court of New Jersey, Hudson CountyRead the full story →
All workplace injury verdicts and settlements
162 results, largest first
After nearly 30 years of litigation, Markovits Stock and DeMarco secured a $742 million-plus-interest settlement for approximately 23,000 Navistar retirees whose healthcare and life insurance benefits had been repeatedly reduced.
Paul Napoli served as court-appointed co-liaison counsel for nearly 10,000 firefighters, police officers, and construction workers who developed respiratory diseases after working at Ground Zero, securing a settlement worth up to $712.5 million against the city and its contractors.
Jose Valdivia, 25, was building scaffolding at the Phillips 66 refinery in Lake Charles when a co-worker above him lost his grip on a steel scaffold bar. It struck him on the head and spine through a hard hat and full protective equipment. He is in a wheelchair with limited speech. Brock never reported the accident to OSHA.
On September 7, 2019, Ulysses Cruz, a 48-year-old United Airlines ramp worker serving as a wing walker at George Bush Intercontinental Airport, was struck from behind by an Allied Aviation Fueling Company of Houston van whose driver said the morning sun was in his eyes. Cruz was paralyzed from the chest down and suffered a stroke two days later that cost him the use of his dominant right arm. After a two-week trial before Judge Ravi Sandill, a Harris County jury on October 25, 2021 found Allied 70 percent and driver Reginald Willis 30 percent at fault and awarded Cruz, his wife and their two children $352.7 million in compensatory damages. Judge Sandill conditioned denial of a new trial on a $117.5 million remittitur of noneconomic damages, which the family accepted, and an amended judgment of about $235.3 million was signed February 7, 2022. Allied appealed, the parties reached a confidential mediated settlement, and on July 18, 2023 the First Court of Appeals vacated the judgment and dismissed the case at the parties' joint request.
A Fort Bend County jury awarded $222 million to the widow of Jesse Henson, a power-plant repairman scalded to death by superheated steam from a relief valve serviced by Team Industrial Services, a judgment a Texas appeals court later reversed before dismissing the case on the ground that it belonged in Kansas.
A Harris County jury awarded Laura Schneider and her three children $209.2 million after finding that Terra Energy Partners hid a known hantavirus danger that killed her husband, Karl.
A Houston jury awarded $159 million to five oilfield workers burned, and the family of one man killed, in a 2012 liquid-fire explosion at Valero Energy's Memphis, Tennessee refinery.
A 20-year-old painter suffered a traumatic brain injury in a 2021 ladder fall in Utah. A Denver jury found his workers' compensation carrier, NorGUARD Insurance, knowingly and unreasonably delayed and denied his care, including inpatient rehabilitation. It awarded $145.26 million, made up of $85.26 million in compensatory and $60 million in punitive damages.
A Henderson County jury awarded $101 million to two masonry workers and one worker's wife after a 12-foot retaining wall, rebuilt under Hajoca's direction without an engineer or a permit, collapsed onto their crew.
Four construction workers were killed and more than 30 injured when five floors of a parking garage under construction at the Tropicana Casino Resort in Atlantic City collapsed in October 2003, leading to what attorneys described as the largest construction-accident settlement in U.S. history at that time.
A Galveston federal jury awarded $100 million to ten contract workers exposed to carbon disulfide at BP's Texas City refinery in April 2007. The judge set aside the punitive damages, seven workers later settled on undisclosed terms, and the Fifth Circuit vacated the verdict for the remaining three in 2011.
Robert Habush won a $99.25 million Milwaukee County jury verdict for the widows of three ironworkers killed when the Big Blue crane collapsed at Miller Park. The appeals court vacated the $94 million punitive award, the Wisconsin Supreme Court reinstated the claim in 2005, and the widows settled in January 2006 for about $30 million.
After winning a $26.6 million jury verdict for a union mason who fell through defective scaffolding on the Longfellow Bridge, Andrew Abraham of Keches Law Group returned to court and proved that Liberty Mutual's insurers willfully refused to investigate or settle a clear liability case, prompting a judge to double the compensatory judgment to over $91 million under Chapter 93A and 176D.
A Cook County jury awarded $95.5 million to a truck driver who lost both legs when improperly loaded carbon steel bundles fell from a crane during unloading, with a 10% comparative fault reduction bringing the net award to $85.9 million, the highest double-amputation verdict in Illinois history.
A federal jury in Portland awarded $85 million to 12 Oregon Army National Guard soldiers after finding that contractor KBR knowingly exposed them to a carcinogenic chemical at an Iraqi water treatment plant and then lied about the danger.
A Harris County jury found Hanover Compression L.P. (later Exterran Energy Solutions L.P.) grossly negligent in the 2007 explosion of a hot oil heater at a Quicksilver Resources natural gas plant in Hood County, Texas, that killed 27-year-old plant worker Joshua Wade Petrie. The jury assigned Hanover 90 percent of the responsibility and Quicksilver 10 percent, and in June 2010 awarded Petrie's widow, his three young children and his father a combined $82.5 million, a total that included $25 million in punitive damages against Hanover. Rob Ammons and Bennett Midlo of The Ammons Law Firm represented the family. Quicksilver, as Petrie's employer, carried workers' compensation coverage and was not itself on the hook for the damages award.
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.
A Cook County jury awarded $64 million to Ronald Bayer, a union ironworker paralyzed from the neck down after falling 15 feet at a Panduit Corp. warehouse construction site in DeKalb, Illinois, at the time the largest verdict ever returned for a quadriplegic in Illinois.
A Queens County jury awarded Zeng Guang Lin, an immigrant construction worker who was 20 when he fell 20 feet from a roof at a Bronx job site, $62,060,086.27 on December 17, 2014 after finding property owner Hutch Realty Partners LLC and contractor Gamut Consulting Inc. liable under New York Labor Law for failing to provide him fall protection. Lin suffered a traumatic brain injury along with spinal fractures, rib fractures, a lacerated spleen, a renal hematoma, and lung contusions. Hutch Realty filed post-trial motions and appealed, and while both were pending the case settled for $6,000,000, against a judgment the defense firm on the appeal puts at $68 million. Benedict Morelli tried the case for Lin; trade-press coverage at the time identified his firm as the Morelli, Alters and Ratner Law Firm, the practice known today as Morelli Law Firm PLLC.
A Thurston County jury awarded $57 million to roughly 22,000 live-in home-care providers after finding that Washington's Department of Social and Health Services unlawfully cut their pay through an automatic 15 percent reduction in authorized care hours.
A Brooklyn jury found general contractor Mecca Contracting failed to protect Alan Moonsammy from a fall that left him paralyzed and awarded him $53.5 million.
A Philadelphia jury awarded $46.5 million, including $38.5 million in punitive damages, against U.S. Security Associates after its guards fled rather than warn workers during the 2010 Kraft plant shooting that killed Tanya Wilson and LaTonya Brown. Kline & Specter's Shanin Specter, Dominic Guerrini, and Patrick Fitzgerald tried the case.
A Middlesex County jury awarded $26.6 million to union mason John Rooney, Jr. after he fell through a two-foot scaffold gap during the Longfellow Bridge rehabilitation and suffered seven spinal operations and permanent disability, with pre-judgment interest bringing the total compensatory judgment to roughly $45.5 million.
Arian Hila, 48, suffered catastrophic traumatic brain injury at a Tappan, New York demolition site in February 2018 when a debris chute broke free and crushed him, leaving him without oxygen for nearly 20 minutes; a $44 million settlement was reached seven days into a 2024 jury trial.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.