Indiana Personal Injury Verdicts and Settlements

Cohen & Malad attorneys Irwin Levin and Richard Shevitz served on the court-appointed plaintiffs executive committee that negotiated a $1.25 billion class action settlement with Credit Suisse, UBS, and Swiss Bank Corporation on behalf of Holocaust survivors and their heirs.

A Tippecanoe County jury awarded $157 million to the widow of Timothy Simonton, a 42-year-old Indiana man who died in October 2005 after the locking pins on an Ol' Man tree stand failed and left him hanging from a tree during a deer-scouting outing.

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.

CohenMalad recovered $66.5 million on behalf of 262 patients who alleged that Dr. Arvind Gandhi and Cardiology Associates of Northwest Indiana implanted pacemakers and defibrillators and performed open-heart surgeries that were never medically necessary.

Cohen & Malad's Irwin Levin secured a $62 million class action settlement in 2017 after proving the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles had knowingly overcharged 5.5 million drivers across more than 100 fee categories for over a decade.

Irwin Levin of CohenMalad served as court-appointed co-lead class counsel in a multidistrict antitrust case against seven central Indiana ready-mixed concrete companies, securing approximately $59 million in combined settlements for construction-industry buyers who paid inflated prices during a four-year price-fixing conspiracy.

Robert T. Dassow of Hovde Dassow + Deets served as local liaison counsel for the plaintiffs steering committee in the Biomet M2A Magnum metal-on-metal hip implant MDL, helping coordinate a settlement valued at least $56 million, with individual awards paid from a program that ultimately resolved roughly 2,800 claims nationwide.

CohenMalad partner David Cutshaw co-led a $55 million Indiana Patient's Compensation Fund settlement for 282 patients who underwent unnecessary or damaging sinus surgeries performed by Dr. Mark Weinberger, a Merrillville ENT who later fled the country and was found hiding in the Italian Alps.

A Marion County jury in March 2024 awarded $60.7 million to motorcyclist Christopher Dugan after a Tesla service manager crossed double yellow lines and struck him, leaving him with a permanent traumatic brain injury and a partial foot amputation; comparative fault reduced the net award to $42.5 million.

Cohen & Malad's Irwin Levin secured a $30 million class action settlement in 2013 after proving the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles had been charging drivers as much as $6 too much per license for six years.

Cohen and Malad, co-counsel in a class action on behalf of more than 2,000 Indiana homeowners, secured a $24 million settlement against builder Trinity Homes and parent Beazer Homes after faulty brick construction allowed widespread water intrusion and mold growth.

A Marion County jury awarded $20 million to a union carpenter left permanently disabled after Indianapolis Power and Light issued a faulty dig permit that failed to account for a live 4,160-volt electrical line at its Petersburg power plant.

An eight-person federal jury awarded $10 million to the widow and two children of Christopher Short, 44, who died when a Marvin Keller Trucking driver crossed the I-64 median in Bath County, Kentucky, in March 2019.

A Marion County jury awarded $6 million to the estate of Michael Rex Fergerson, who died after an IndyGo bus driver pulled away from a stop too early and ran over him; the Indiana Supreme Court reinstated the verdict in 2025 after the Court of Appeals had reversed it.

A Morgan County jury awarded $1,250,075 to a plumbing contractor who suffered severe burns after a Carmel High School maintenance employee ignited a pool heater's pilot light over the contractor's explicit objection, triggering a gas explosion that blew the roof off the building.

A Richmond obstetrician ordered a contraction stress test instead of the recommended non-stress evaluation as a 34-week fetus showed distress, and a Wayne County jury held him responsible for the baby's death.

The mother of M. Shane Satterfield, 38, recovered $640,000 from Decatur County's liability insurer after he died of untreated alcohol withdrawal while serving a drunk-driving sentence at the county jail.

A Clark County jury awarded $601,853 to a woman rear-ended in the rain on the Mountain Parkway, finding her shoulder and hip injuries, PTSD, and lost income were caused by the collision despite a defense claim that she had exaggerated her symptoms.

A federal jury awarded Edward Nance $350,000 after Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke violently handcuffed him during a 2007 traffic stop, tearing both rotator cuffs and ending his ability to work.

Roughly two dozen women sued after a Clark County jail officer sold cell keys to male detainees, and the county's insurer paid $328,000 to settle the federal suits that Wagner Reese helped bring.

Four former North Central High School students settled their federal suit against the Metropolitan School District of Washington Township for $245,000 after alleging the district ignored years of warnings about a drama teacher's grooming, with Wagner Reese's Jeff Gibson representing the plaintiffs.

Indianapolis paid $150,000 in 2013 to settle the federal civil rights suit of Brandon Johnson, a 15-year-old beaten by IMPD officers during his younger brother's 2010 arrest, with Stephen Wagner of Wagner Reese representing him.

A Marion County jury found Indianapolis landlords 85 percent at fault for a tenant's fall down a rental staircase that had no code-required handrail, awarding her $121,770 for permanent ankle and nerve damage.

Craig Kelley and Faultless LLC persuaded the Indiana Supreme Court to reverse two lower-court defeats and restore the negligence claims of Yerano and Jessica Martinez, who were injured when a landowner's overgrown bush concealed a stop sign at a rural Miami County intersection.