Maryland Personal Injury Verdicts and Settlements

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.

A Baltimore jury awarded Catonsville businessman Scott Steele $276 million after finding that First Union National Bank defrauded his settlement-services company and used his proprietary technology to build a competing business projected to generate $2.4 billion in profits.

A Philadelphia jury returned a $182.7 million verdict -- later reaching $207.6 million with interest and upheld through the Pennsylvania Superior Court in July 2025 -- against the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania for a 45-minute delay in performing a C-section on a mother with a known uterine infection, leaving her child with permanent cerebral palsy.

Morgan & Morgan's John Yanchunis served as court-appointed co-lead counsel in the multidistrict litigation over Capital One's 2019 data breach, which exposed the personal information of roughly 98 million U.S. customers. The $190 million settlement won final approval in 2022 as one of the largest data breach recoveries in U.S. history.

Jonathan Schochor served as lead attorney for more than 8,000 women who reached a $190 million class-action settlement against Johns Hopkins Hospital after gynecologist Dr. Nikita Levy secretly filmed patients during examinations over a 25-year career.

William H. Murphy Jr. co-counseled the $185 million settlement against Ernst and Young, the largest single-defendant civil settlement in Maryland history at the time, after the accounting firm provided incompetent turnaround advice that accelerated Merry-Go-Round Enterprises into liquidation.

Schochor, Federico and Staton, P.A. represented the largest single group of plaintiffs in a $123 million class-action settlement against Beebe Medical Center for institutional failures that allowed pediatrician Earl Bradley to abuse hundreds of children over 15 years.

A Morgan & Morgan trial team won a $120 million Alachua County verdict for Jacob Rodgers, paralyzed at 20 when a Gainesville Regional Utilities driver ran a stop sign and broadsided the pickup he was riding in. After appeals and remittitur cut the judgment to $18.3 million, the case settled for $11 million, most of it paid through a Florida legislative claims bill that became law in 2025.

As court-appointed lead plaintiffs' counsel, Morgan & Morgan's John Yanchunis negotiated the $117.5 million settlement resolving claims from Yahoo's 2013-2016 data breaches, the largest theft of personal data in history, touching roughly 3 billion accounts worldwide. Judge Lucy Koh approved the fund in 2020 after rejecting an earlier version as inadequate.

A Baltimore City jury returned a $105 million wrongful-death verdict against off-duty Officer Rodney Price, who shot Tristin Little Sr. more than a dozen times with his service weapon in March 2001; the trial court later reduced the award to approximately $26.99 million.

A Miami-Dade jury awarded $100 million to former Florida state senator Daphne Campbell for the death of her son Jason, shot while sleeping at the Monte Carlo Condominium after an intruder walked in through failed security. Morgan & Morgan attorneys Thomas Hasty, Grant Gillenwater, Chuck Fernandez, and Patrick Chucri tried the negligent security case with co-counsel from Ver Ploeg & Marino.

Morgan & Morgan trial lawyers Keith Mitnik and Gregory Prysock won a $90.8 million jury verdict against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco for Lyantie Townsend, whose husband Frank died of lung cancer after smoking since age 13. The award, $10.8 million compensatory plus $80 million punitive, was later reduced through appeals to a final judgment of $25.5 million, which stood.

A Baltimore City jury awarded $55 million after Johns Hopkins Hospital delayed an emergency cesarean section for more than two hours following a home-birth transfer, leaving infant Enzo Martinez with permanent cerebral palsy and profound neurological injuries.

A Citrus County jury awarded $54.1 million to the family of Jeffery Hindalong, killed when a Freightliner bucket truck driven by a tree-service employee swerved across the center line into his vehicle. Morgan & Morgan partner Jonathan Brozyna and the firm's trial team took the case to verdict after the family turned down a $2 million settlement offer.

Hassan Murphy co-led the class action against Constellation Energy after fly ash from a coal plant fouled private drinking wells in a Gambrills neighborhood, producing a $54 million package that connected affected homes to public water and established a $9.5 million resident trust fund.

William H. Murphy Jr. won a $44 million Baltimore jury verdict after a police officer threw handcuffed Albert Mosley headfirst into a concrete jail cell wall, rendering him a permanent quadriplegic; the city refused to pay and the case ultimately settled for $1 million.

Murphy Falcon and Murphy served as lead class counsel in a $37 million settlement on behalf of 273 patients who underwent medically unnecessary cardiac stent procedures performed by Dr. Mark Midei at St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson, Maryland.

After a 13-week trial, a Baltimore City jury awarded $34.33 million to 20 Ruth's Chris Steakhouse workers and three of their spouses after the workers suffered permanent brain damage when carbon monoxide from Pier Five Hotel's boiler system flooded their workplace over several months in early 2008.

A Baltimore County jury found that University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center performed an unjustified emergency cesarean section on a mother showing no confirmed signs of labor, delivering her son at 23 weeks and causing severe brain damage that will require lifelong care.

Price Benowitz, with co-counsel Ben Crump, filed a $25 million wrongful death suit for the father of Rolin Hill, who died in 2024 after Virginia Beach jail deputies restrained and beat him during a mental health crisis.

A Baltimore City jury returned a $21.5 million verdict against two landlord companies whose failure to conduct any background check on a maintenance worker allowed a convicted sex offender to rape, slash, and set two tenants on fire.

A Baltimore City jury returned a $21 million verdict against MedStar Harbor Hospital after physicians failed to perform a timely emergency cesarean section during a premature delivery, causing a newborn to suffer oxygen deprivation and permanent spastic diplegic cerebral palsy.

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.

A Harford County jury returned a $13.3 million verdict against Upper Chesapeake Medical Center and its attending obstetrician after nursing staff failed to recognize fetal distress signals during a 17-hour induced labor, leaving a boy born in 2004 with permanent brain damage and intellectual disability.