Verdicts & settlements

Sullivan Papain was among the firms representing New York State against Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, and Lorillard, securing a $25 billion recovery through the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement.

John Eddie Williams, Jr. served as one of five private attorneys retained by the State of Texas to sue the major tobacco companies, producing a $15.3 billion settlement in January 1998, the largest single-case settlement in U.S. history at the time.

David Casey Jr. of CaseyGerry was appointed by Judge Charles Breyer as the sole San Diego attorney on the 22-member Plaintiffs' Steering Committee overseeing MDL 2672, the consolidated clean-diesel emissions fraud litigation that produced a $14.7 billion settlement against Volkswagen.

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.

As court-appointed co-lead plaintiffs' counsel in AFFF MDL 2873, Paul J. Napoli of Napoli Shkolnik negotiated a settlement requiring 3M Company to pay up to $12.5 billion to public water systems contaminated by PFAS compounds in firefighting foam, the largest drinking-water settlement in American legal history.

A Montgomery jury returned an $11.9 billion verdict against ExxonMobil in 2003 after finding the company fraudulently underpaid Alabama on natural gas royalties from Mobile Bay state leases, though the Alabama Supreme Court later reversed the fraud count and punitive damages, leaving compensatory damages only.

C. Steven Yerrid, the youngest of Florida's 11-lawyer 'Dream Team,' added racketeering and conspiracy charges that tripled the damages ceiling, helping the state secure what was then the largest civil settlement in American history against the tobacco industry.

Michael C. Maher's firm, Maher, Gibson & Guiley, P.A., was one of eleven private law firms appointed to the state's Peoples' Trial Advocates in Florida's Medicaid cost-recovery lawsuit against the major cigarette manufacturers, which produced an $11.3 billion settlement, the largest tobacco recovery by a single state in U.S. history at the time.

Wayne Hogan served on the private-counsel team that secured a then-record $11.3 billion settlement from five major cigarette manufacturers, reimbursing Florida's Medicaid program for decades of smoking-related medical costs.

As co-lead counsel in the federal Roundup multidistrict litigation and the first firm to sue Monsanto in 2015, Weitz and Luxenberg helped negotiate a $10.9 billion settlement resolving approximately 125,000 non-Hodgkin lymphoma claims against Bayer-owned Monsanto.

Paul Pennock, now head of mass torts at Morgan & Morgan, then co-lead counsel of the federal Actos MDL at Weitz & Luxenberg, helped try the bellwether case that produced a $9 billion punitive verdict against Takeda and Eli Lilly for hiding the diabetes drug's bladder cancer risk. The award was later cut to about $36.9 million, but the verdict drove Takeda to a $2.4 billion global settlement in 2015.

As court-appointed co-lead plaintiffs counsel in the federal Actos MDL, Paul Pennock of Weitz and Luxenberg helped the plaintiffs' team win a $9 billion punitive damages verdict against Takeda Pharmaceuticals and Eli Lilly on behalf of a New York man whose bladder cancer was linked to years of taking the diabetes drug pioglitazone.

A Louisiana federal jury awarded Terrence Allen $9 billion in punitive damages against Takeda and Eli Lilly after finding they hid Actos's bladder cancer risk for years, with W. Mark Lanier serving as lead trial counsel in the first federal bellwether trial of the massive MDL.

A Philadelphia jury awarded $8 billion in punitive damages against Johnson & Johnson over Risperdal and male breast growth in a young patient, an award the trial judge later reduced to $6.8 million.

Appointed by the court as Plaintiffs Liaison Counsel and Co-Lead Class Counsel, Stephen Herman of Herman Herman and Katz helped negotiate a $7.8 billion economic and property-damage class settlement with BP covering more than 100,000 Gulf Coast businesses and individuals harmed by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

After fifteen years of litigation and three failed bankruptcy maneuvers by Johnson and Johnson subsidiaries, Ashcraft and Gerel attorneys R. Bryant McCulley and Michelle Parfitt helped negotiate a global, uncapped settlement of at least $5.5 billion covering approximately 76,000 ovarian-cancer claims.

A Los Angeles jury ordered General Motors to pay $4.9 billion after a 1979 Chevrolet Malibu's rear-mounted fuel tank ruptured and burned six occupants in a rear-end crash, the largest US personal-injury verdict at the time.

A Los Angeles jury ordered General Motors to pay $4.9 billion after six people, including four children, were trapped and severely burned when the defectively placed fuel tank on a 1979 Chevy Malibu ruptured in a rear-end crash on Christmas Eve 1993.

Merck agreed in November 2007 to pay $4.85 billion to resolve more than 47,000 personal injury claims tied to Vioxx, the painkiller the company pulled from the market in 2004 after studies linked it to heart attacks and strokes, with Beasley Allen serving as one of the lead plaintiffs firms in the litigation.

The Cartwright Law Firm was among the first California filers against Merck over the painkiller Vioxx, and Robert Cartwright Jr. served on the California JCCP Plaintiffs' Steering Committee through the 2007 global resolution that distributed $4.85 billion across more than 45,000 claimants.

As chair of the plaintiffs' negotiating committee and Liaison Counsel in the Vioxx multidistrict litigation, Russ Herman directed the negotiations that produced a $4.85 billion settlement with Merck resolving approximately 45,000 to 50,000 personal-injury claims.

A St. Louis jury in July 2018 awarded 22 women and their families $4.69 billion, the largest U.S. verdict of that year, finding that asbestos in Johnson & Johnson's talcum powder products caused ovarian cancer; a Missouri appellate court upheld $2.11 billion in 2020.

A St. Louis jury returned a $4.69 billion verdict against Johnson and Johnson on behalf of 22 women who developed ovarian cancer after years of using the company's talcum powder products, with Thomas K. Neill of Gray, Ritter and Graham, P.C. serving on the plaintiff trial team.

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.