Record $148 Million Verdict for Dancer Paralyzed by O'Hare Shelter Collapse

On August 2, 2015, Tierney Darden was waiting outside Terminal 2 at O'Hare International Airport with her mother and sister when a sudden storm rolled in. As the winds picked up, a 750-pound glass and steel pedestrian shelter broke loose from its mounting and fell. It came down on Darden, then a 24-year-old dancer and Truman College student from Mundelein. The impact severed her spinal cord and left her paralyzed from the waist down. Her mother and sister were also hurt, though less severely.

Investigators later found the shelter had been poorly maintained. Bolts were missing, brackets were broken, and the metal posts had corroded. The structure was never anchored the way it should have been. When Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard looked at other shelters around the airport, the lawyers found the same pattern of neglect across the property.

Darden sued the City of Chicago and its aviation department. The case went to trial in August 2017 before Judge Clare McWilliams in Cook County Circuit Court. The firm's team included Patrick A. Salvi, Patrick Salvi II, Jeffrey Kroll, Tara Devine, and Eirene Salvi. The city admitted it was at fault before the trial began, so the fight centered on the value of Darden's losses. Her lawyers documented a lifetime of medical care, lost earnings, and the daily reality of paralysis at 24. They asked the jury for nearly $175 million. The city's lawyers, from Williams & Gundlach and Dentons, had offered $30 million.

After about four hours of deliberation on August 23, 2017, the jury returned a verdict of $148,190,997, which included $32 million for future medical costs. It was the largest compensatory verdict ever awarded to a single person in Illinois.

The city challenged the result and signaled it would appeal. Rather than risk years more of litigation, both sides settled. In January 2018, the City of Chicago and its insurer agreed to pay Darden $115 million, a figure the City Council approved. "Although we believed the verdict would have been upheld on appeal, when weighing the risks and benefits, we felt this was a fair compromise," Salvi said. The $115 million payment was the largest personal injury settlement in Illinois history at the time.