Meredith Hinton Secures $21 Million Confidential Auto Accident Settlement in North Carolina

On June 13, 2023, North Carolina Lawyers Weekly reported a $21 million settlement in a motor vehicle case handled by Meredith Hinton of Ricci Law Firm, which works out of Greenville. The publication tracks verdicts and settlements across the state, and an eight figure recovery in an auto claim rarely appears on its pages.

Most of the file stays sealed. The parties signed a confidentiality agreement, so the court, the county, the defendant, and the insurer never entered the public record, and the specific injuries were withheld as well. What the report confirms is the shape of the case: a person was hurt in a crash, a personal injury claim followed, and Hinton represented the plaintiff. Agreements of this kind are common at the top of the injury range, where a defendant and its carrier will often pay more in exchange for silence on the terms.

The size of the number does its own talking. A $21 million payment sits far above an ordinary auto recovery, where policy limits and disputed fault usually hold down what an injured person can collect. A figure this large generally tracks with severe, lasting harm and with a defendant who had real exposure, whether through high coverage limits or a deep pocket behind the wreck.

North Carolina makes that result harder to reach than most states. It still follows contributory negligence, a rule that can erase a recovery completely if the injured person is found even one percent at fault for the collision. Settling for $21 million under that standard signals that liability was not seriously in doubt.

A settlement closes a case without a trial verdict. The defense agreed to pay, the plaintiff agreed to accept, and the matter ended before a jury was seated. No judge cut the amount and no appeals court remitted it, because a settlement produces no judgment to challenge later. For a badly injured client, that certainty can outweigh the chance of a bigger number years down the road.

Hinton has been licensed in North Carolina since 2005 and handles car, truck, and motorcycle collisions out of the firm's Greenville office. She earned her law degree at Campbell University, belongs to the Million Dollar Advocates Forum and the Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum, and joined the American Board of Trial Advocates in 2023. The firm's own results page lists the case as a $21,000,000 confidential auto accident settlement.