Top Wrongful Death Personal Injury Settlements
The largest personal injury settlements for wrongful death cases for one client or family, ranked by amount. Each links to the full story, the firm, and the record behind the number.
- $160 millionSettlementPA
U-Haul Pays $160 Million After Overfilled Propane Tank Kills Food Truck Owner and Her Daughter
A $160 million settlement, the largest pre-verdict settlement in Pennsylvania court history, resolved claims against U-Haul after an overfilled propane tank exploded at a North Philadelphia food truck, killing a mother and her teenage daughter and severely burning three others.
After trial: The $160 million figure is a pre-trial settlement, not a jury verdict; U-Haul and the victims' families settled less than a week before trial was set to begin. The settlement was not confidential, and broke down as $69.17 million, $54.3 million, and $36.47 million to the estates involved.
Feldman Shepherd Wohlgelernter Tanner Weinstock Dodig2018 · Philadelphia Court of Common PleasRead the full story → - $100 millionSettlementWI
Willis Family Wrongful Death Settlement: $100 Million After Six Children Killed in I-94 Truck Crash
Power Rogers LLP recovered $100 million for Rev. Scott and Janet Willis after six of their nine children were killed when a mudflap assembly fell from a tractor-trailer on I-94 and ignited their minivan, a case that ultimately exposed an Illinois license-bribery scheme and sent Governor George Ryan to federal prison.
After trial: This was a settlement, not a jury verdict. The case never went to trial: the Willis family and the defendants settled the wrongful death claims for $100 million in 1999.
- $50 millionSettlementMO
$50 Million Settlement After Supplier Ignored Pleas to Replace Dying Man's Breathing Device
Simon Law secured a $50 million wrongful death settlement after a young man with intellectual disabilities died when a national durable medical equipment supplier repeatedly ignored his mother's calls for a replacement breathing device.
- $40 millionSettlementGA
$40 Million Settlement After GDOT and Contractors Left a Broken I-85 Guardrail Unrepaired for Months
Jeb Butler and Matt Kahn, alongside co-counsel, secured a $40 million settlement against GDOT, a fence contractor, and a construction management firm after a guardrail left in disrepair for months on I-85 contributed to the death of Catrice Hunter.
- $40 millionSettlementPaidCT
$40 Million Settlement After 6-Year-Old Drowned in Backyard Pool Drain Built Without Safety Devices
On July 26, 2007, a 6-year-old boy drowned in his family's backyard pool in Greenwich when his arm was sucked into a wall drain feeding a spillover spa. Connecticut had required dual drains and a vacuum-release device since 2004, a year before the pool was permitted, and the builder had installed neither. The pool company's president pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide in 2011, the first such prosecution of a pool builder in the country. By May 2013 the parents, Brian and Karen Cohn, had settled with all nine defendants for a combined $40 million, all of it directed to the water-safety foundation they created in their son's name.
After trial: The $40 million is the sum of five separately negotiated settlements with nine defendants, completed by May 2013, including $10 million from the Town of Greenwich. The proceeds went to the family's foundation.
- $36 millionSettlementCA
Tran Family: $36 Million Settlement After a Deputy Who Failed His Psych Exam Killed a Dublin Couple
Chris Dolan represented the surviving Tran family and reached a $36 million settlement with Alameda County after an off-duty deputy who had failed his psychological exam shot Maria and Benison Tran in their Dublin home.
- $27 millionSettlementIL
Chicago Approves $27 Million Settlement After an Unauthorized Police Chase Killed a Mother of Six
After a Chicago police pursuit that broke department policy killed Stacy Vaughn-Harrell and an earlier $10.2 million jury verdict was thrown out on appeal, the City Council approved a $27 million settlement for her family.
Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard P.C.2026 · Cook County, Chicago, IL (City Council-approved settlement)Read the full story → - $23.5 millionSettlementIL
$23.5 Million Settlement for Family of Surveyor Killed in Scaffold Fall at UChicago Cancer Pavilion
David O'Donnell, 27, died after an improperly anchored scaffold at the University of Chicago Cancer Pavilion construction site swung away from the building during a 44 mph wind gust and dropped him 140 feet; GWC attorney Louis Cairo secured a $23.5 million settlement for his family in June 2025.
- $21 millionSettlementNV
$21 Million Settlement for Family of Mother of Three Killed by Drunk Driver in Las Vegas
Melissa Newton, a 36-year-old mother of three, was killed in May 2019 when real estate broker Scott Gragson crashed his Range Rover while drunk in The Ridges, a gated Las Vegas community. Settlement documents filed in her family's wrongful-death suit put the payout at $21 million, with $12.8 million coming from Gragson personally and $8.2 million from his insurer. Gragson pleaded guilty to DUI causing death and DUI causing substantial bodily harm.
- $20 millionSettlementMD
$20 Million Settlement for Family of William Green, Shot Six Times While Handcuffed in a Police Cruiser
William H. Murphy Jr. secured a $20 million settlement for the family of William Howard Green, a 43-year-old father shot six times by a Prince George's County officer while handcuffed in the front seat of a patrol car, at the time the largest such settlement ever paid by a Maryland local government.
- $19.2 millionSettlementPaidNJ
$19.2 Million Settlement for Elizabeth Gas Explosion That Killed Three Members of One Family
A gas explosion at a converted multi-family house in Elizabeth, New Jersey on November 11, 2015 badly burned six members of the Henderson family and, over the following weeks and months, killed three of them. The family sued the gas utility and the property owner, alleging an improperly capped gas line caused the blast. On February 11, 2019, a Union County Superior Court judge approved a $19.2 million settlement, reached in mediation, apportioned among three estates and three surviving claimants.
After trial: This was a mediated settlement approved by the court, not a litigated verdict, and no appeal followed. The $19.2 million figure is the total recovery before the deduction of court-approved attorney fees, funeral expenses and Medicaid liens; the percentages above apply to the net amount after those deductions.
Mazie Slater Katz & Freeman, LLC2019 · Superior Court of New Jersey, Union CountyRead the full story → - $16 millionSettlementIL
Three Women Died in a 103-Degree Senior Apartment. Their Families Won $16 Million.
After management at a Rogers Park senior building kept the heat running through a May 2022 heat wave, three elderly residents died of heat exposure; their families settled for $16 million against the building's owner and property manager.
- $14.6 millionSettlementWA
$14.6 Million Settlement Against Tahoma School District for Catastrophic Youth Football Brain Injury
Richard Adler and co-counsel Mike Nelson secured a $14.6 million settlement for Zackery Lystedt, a 13-year-old Tahoma Junior High football player left with catastrophic brain damage after coaches returned him to play following a concussion in October 2006.
- $14.1 millionSettlementKY
$14.1 Million Settlement After College Wrestler Died of Heatstroke During Punishment Practice
The University of the Cumberlands paid $14.1 million to the family of Grant Brace, a 20-year-old wrestler who died of exertional heatstroke in August 2020 after coaches refused him water during a grueling punishment practice and failed to summon medical help.
Minner Vines Injury Lawyers, PLLC2023 · Williamsburg, KY (University of the Cumberlands)Read the full story → - $13.5 millionSettlementUT
$13.5 Million Settlement for Family of Slain Student-Athlete Lauren McCluskey
Parker and McConkie secured a $13.5 million settlement for the family of Lauren McCluskey, a University of Utah track athlete murdered on campus after police failed to act on her repeated stalking reports.
- $13.5 millionSettlementWI
Family Settles for $13.5 Million After Girl Dies in South Milwaukee Sizzler E. coli Outbreak
The family of a three-year-old girl who died of E. coli traced to contaminated beef at a South Milwaukee Sizzler reached a $13.5 million settlement, among the largest food-borne-illness recoveries in the country.
- $12.5 millionSettlementGA
Family of Young Mother Killed at Atlanta Highway Construction Site Settles Wrongful Death Suit Against Contractor
Stevie Bryant, a young mother, died in May 2020 after a crash on the Downtown Connector in Atlanta sent the car she was riding in into an impact attenuator that had been left improperly installed at a highway construction site. Her family sued the contractor, Precision 2000, Inc., in DeKalb County State Court. The case settled for $12.5 million in 2025, less than a week before jury selection was to begin.
- $12 millionSettlementVA
Grain Delivery Driver Electrocuted at Silo: $12 Million Settlement Against Power Company and Property Owner
A 23-year-old grain truck driver was killed when an electrical arc jumped from an overhead high-voltage power line to the portable auger he was using at a commercial silo, and his family recovered $12 million from the power company and property owner.
- $12 millionSettlementNC
A Warehouse Visit, Falling Marble Slabs, and a $12 Million Wrongful-Death Settlement
Behzad "Al" Abedi was killed when stacked marble slabs fell on him at a Charlotte stone warehouse in 2019, and DeMayo Law Offices resolved his family's premises- and products-liability claims for $12 million.
- $11.75 millionSettlementCA
$11.75 Million Settlement for Family of Cyclist Killed by Distracted Sheriff's Deputy in Calabasas
Milton Olin Jr., a 65-year-old attorney and former Napster executive, was killed on Dec. 8, 2013 when a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy typing on his patrol car's computer drifted into a Calabasas bike lane. In May 2018 the county's Board of Supervisors unanimously approved an $11.75 million settlement of the family's wrongful death lawsuit, days before a civil trial was to begin.
All wrongful death verdicts and settlements
410 results, largest first
In December 2011, a Fayette County, Texas jury awarded the family of an 8-year-old Splendora boy $150.37 billion after he was doused with gasoline and set on fire by a 13-year-old neighbor in 1998, two weeks after the same neighbor sexually assaulted him. The boy survived third-degree burns over 99 percent of his body for nearly 13 years before dying in April 2011 of a skin cancer linked to his injuries. The defendant, Don Wilburn Collins, never appeared to answer the civil suit, and the jury awarded $370 million in actual damages plus roughly $150 billion in punitive damages, the largest civil verdict in U.S. history. Attorney Craig Sico, who represented the family, said from the outset that the judgment was not collectible and was intended to pressure prosecutors into reopening the long-dormant criminal case. Prosecutors did reopen the case, and Collins was later convicted of capital murder in a separate criminal proceeding.
A Pensacola jury awarded Cynthia Robinson $23.6 billion in punitive damages against R.J. Reynolds over the 1996 lung cancer death of her 36-year-old husband, the largest single-plaintiff award of Florida's Engle tobacco litigation, but the trial judge called the number constitutionally excessive, an appeals court ordered a full retrial over improper closing arguments, and a second jury returned a complete defense verdict in 2019, so the estate ultimately collected nothing.
Frantz Law Group, representing roughly 5,000 victims, helped negotiate a $13.5 billion PG&E bankruptcy settlement covering tens of thousands of survivors and families from the 2015 Butte, 2017 North Bay, and 2018 Camp wildfires.
Leavitt, Yamane and Soldner represented Maui wildfire survivors and victims' families in the $4.037 billion global settlement resolving approximately 450 lawsuits arising from the August 2023 Lahaina fire.
A Polk County jury awarded $110 million in compensatory damages and $1 billion in punitive damages over the death of 69-year-old Arlene Townsend, who fell 17 times at the Auburndale Oaks Healthcare Center, in a Wilkes & McHugh case against Trans Healthcare entities that had defaulted, stopped defending, and were already insolvent and in receivership, which is why the judgment was largely symbolic and the estate ultimately recovered only a small share of a later multi-estate settlement.
The families of 98 people killed in the June 2021 Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside, Florida, recovered over $1 billion through a class settlement run by a court-appointed Plaintiffs' Steering Committee, with final approval reached in under a year.
Sol Weiss and Larry Coben of Anapol Weiss served as co-lead class counsel in the landmark NFL concussion multidistrict litigation, securing a settlement valued at nearly $1 billion for thousands of retired players diagnosed with serious neurological conditions.
In July 1999, a Philadelphia jury awarded $907 million against Ira Einhorn for the 1977 killing of his girlfriend, Helen 'Holly' Maddux, in a civil wrongful death and survival action filed by her family. Einhorn was a fugitive living in France at the time and sent no attorney, so the court directed a verdict for the family on liability and left the six-member jury to decide damages alone. The jury deliberated a little over an hour before returning $752 million in punitive damages and $155 million in compensatory damages. Firm founder James E. Beasley represented the Maddux family. The suit was never intended to collect money from a fugitive with no assets; it was filed to stop Einhorn from profiting off book or movie deals about the case.
Steven Marks and Kristina Infante of Podhurst Orseck secured a combined $844 million in wrongful-death judgments for 43 families of passengers killed when LaMia Flight 2933 crashed near Medellin, Colombia, in November 2016, killing 71 of the 77 people aboard.
A Starr County jury unanimously awarded more than $1.6 billion combined to the families of two workers killed in a 2023 explosion at the Pecos Liquids Handling Facility, with $812 million going to the Garcia Peña family and roughly $809 million to the Alaffa family, finding owner Upton Assets, LLC grossly negligent, though the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy about two weeks before the verdict and collection remains uncertain.
An $800 million settlement from MGM Resorts International resolved claims by more than 4,400 plaintiffs over the October 1, 2017 Route 91 Harvest Festival mass shooting in Las Vegas, one of the largest victim-compensation settlements in U.S. history.
Lewis Butler, a security guard, was shot eight times and killed in November 2023 during an armed robbery at an internet cafe in Havana, Florida. The cafe's operators had not reported a robbery three weeks earlier in which the gun used against him was stolen. In December 2025 a Gadsden County jury awarded his widow $779,389,024, including $550 million for pain and suffering and $225 million for loss of companionship.
A St. Louis County jury returned a $745 million verdict against nitrous oxide distributor United Brands and local head shop Coughing Cardinal after finding the companies conspired to sell Whip-It! canisters as an inhalant to a driver who passed out behind the wheel and fatally struck 25-year-old Marissa Politte outside her workplace.
A Harris County jury awarded $640 million to the family of David Lester Loree II, a journeyman pipefitter fatally crushed when a top-heavy HVAC unit being lifted by TNT Crane and Rigging overturned in high winds at a Texas A&M University-San Antonio construction site in September 2021.
A Clark County jury awarded $550 million, $50 million compensatory and $500 million punitive, to Nimfa Escobia after her husband Marcial was killed by a driver traveling 107 mph while impaired by alcohol, methamphetamine, ecstasy, and marijuana.
The family of Greg Sharrigan, killed when a gas leak ignited at his Maynard home in September 2021, sued Eversource for $450 million, alleging the utility detected the underground leak three years before the fatal explosion and never fixed it.
A Dallas County jury found developer Greystar liable for the 2019 tower crane collapse that killed 29-year-old Kiersten Smith in her apartment, returning an $860 million verdict that Jason and Cory Itkin helped win for her family. The trial court cut the $500 million exemplary award under the Texas statutory cap before signing judgment in August 2023, entering $360,012,006 in compensatory damages jointly and severally against the three Greystar entities plus prejudgment interest, and Greystar's appeal, argued in February 2026, is undecided.
A Hernando County jury returned a $330 million verdict for Angela Stone after a drunk driver ran a stop sign and fatally struck a minivan carrying her 13-year-old daughter.
An Orange County jury awarded $310 million to the parents of Tyre Sampson, the 14-year-old who fell to his death from the Orlando FreeFall drop tower at ICON Park in 2022, in a case tried by Kimberly Wald and Michael Haggard against ride manufacturer Funtime Handels GmbH, which sent no lawyer or representative to the trial, leaving collection of the judgment from the absent Austrian company uncertain.
Jamie Lebovitz served on the federal MDL Plaintiff's Steering Committee for the Alaska Airlines Flight 261 disaster, representing 18 families in confidential individual settlements as part of a broader litigation that recovered more than $300 million for surviving relatives of the 88 people killed.
A Kaufman County jury awarded $296 million in compensatory damages against Koch Industries after a corroded, unmaintained butane pipeline exploded and killed two teenagers on August 24, 1996.
A 565-foot crawler crane toppled across a Tribeca street in 2016, killing a young mathematician; the case settled for $272.5 million.
After Amtrak Train 188 derailed in Philadelphia in May 2015, killing eight and injuring more than 200, Kline & Specter's Thomas R. Kline led the plaintiffs' negotiations that produced a $265 million settlement fund for the victims.
A Dallas jury found Charter Communications liable for the December 2019 murder of 83-year-old customer Betty Jo McClain Thomas by Roy Holden Jr., a Spectrum field technician who had serviced her home the day before, and for forging her signature on an arbitration agreement after her death. The jury awarded $375 million in actual damages and $7 billion in punitive damages. The family then remitted the punitive award down to twice the compensatory damages, in line with the due-process ratio limits the U.S. Supreme Court set in State Farm v. Campbell, and the trial court entered judgment for $1.147 billion. The family later agreed to a further remittitur to $262 million rather than keep defending the larger figure on appeal. Charter then settled confidentially for less than that, funded by its liability insurance, while its appeal to the Fifth Court of Appeals was still pending, and the appeal was dismissed at Charter's own request.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.