Largest Workplace Injury Group Settlements and Recovery Funds

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.

Sullivan Papain served as court-appointed co-liaison counsel in the World Trade Center Disaster Site Litigation, helping secure a settlement of more than $712 million for roughly 10,000 police officers, firefighters, and construction workers who developed serious respiratory and other illnesses after working in the toxic ruins of the World Trade Center.

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 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.

Michael Maggiano of Maggiano, DiGirolamo & Lizzi served on the plaintiffs' trial team that secured a $101 million settlement for the families of four workers killed and dozens injured when the Tropicana Casino Resort's under-construction parking garage collapsed in Atlantic City in 2003, the largest construction-accident settlement in U.S. history at the time.

A Galveston federal jury awarded $100 million to ten contract workers who suffered toxic exposure to carbon disulfide at BP's Texas City refinery in April 2007, though the punitive damages were later vacated by the trial judge.

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, though the $94 million punitive portion was later vacated and the case settled for about $30 million.

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.

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.

William Kershaw served as co-lead class counsel in a wage-and-hour class action on behalf of roughly 23,600 California UPS drivers, securing an $87 million settlement for systematic denial of meal and rest breaks -- the largest California wage-and-hour class action settlement at the time.

On February 13, 2004, a Bronx jury awarded $86,735,134 to Frank Miraglia, a 45 year old construction laborer who fell into a trench when an unsecured plank collapsed under him and was impaled on a steel rebar that severed his spinal cord, leaving him a paraplegic. Steven L. Hess, then of Simonson, Hess & Leibowitz, P.C., was trial counsel; the firm continues today as Hess & Leibowitz, PLLC. The honest frame: the trial judge reduced the award to $25,030,134, and in January 2007 the Appellate Division, First Department trimmed it further, sustaining $5 million for past pain and suffering, conditioning the future pain and suffering award on a reduction from $10 million to $5 million (a reduction Miraglia accepted by stipulation), and cutting future medical expenses to $8,056,222, which left the judgment at just under $20 million.

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 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.

Jeffrey P. Goodman and Aidan B. Carickhoff won a $68.5 million verdict for the widow and young son of Siarhei Marhunou, a 38-year-old Belarusian immigrant who fell nearly 50 feet to his death when a temporary wooden guardrail failed at a Philadelphia townhouse construction site. The Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed the judgment in February 2026.

A Hillsborough County jury returned a $64.5 million verdict for Robert Matthews, a young construction worker left permanently disabled after an 11,000-pound prefabricated building shifted and collapsed on him at a Mosaic fertilizer company mine site.

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 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 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.