New Jersey Personal Injury Verdicts and Settlements
21 independently-sourced personal injury results from New Jersey firms, largest first. Filter by practice area or result type. Each links to the full story, the firm, the attorneys, and the record behind the number.
21 results, largest first
Michael Maggiano of Maggiano, DiGirolamo & Lizzi served on the plaintiffs' trial team that secured a $101 million settlement for the families of four workers killed and dozens injured when the Tropicana Casino Resort's under-construction parking garage collapsed in Atlantic City in 2003, the largest construction-accident settlement in U.S. history at the time.
David and Ina Steiner, founders of the e-commerce news site EcommerceBytes, settled their civil lawsuit against eBay and former company executives for $55.7 million after a coordinated 2019 stalking and harassment campaign targeted them in retaliation for their reporting.
A Philadelphia jury awarded Donna Kendall $6.3 million in compensatory damages and $28 million in punitive damages after finding that Wyeth's Prempro hormone-replacement drug caused her breast cancer and the double mastectomy that followed; the Pennsylvania Superior Court restored the full punitive award in 2012 after the trial judge had cut it to $1 million.
A Ulster County jury returned a $31 million verdict, the largest car-crash award in the county's history, for Kelly Burley, who developed cauda equina syndrome and permanent wheelchair dependence after a moving truck rear-ended her vehicle on the Mid-Hudson Bridge in 2019.
When improperly installed scaffolding collapsed at a Bordentown, New Jersey construction site and injured four workers, John Ratkowitz of Ginarte Gonzalez and Winograd secured a $19.675 million multi-party settlement that awarded $15 million to Luis Yanza, who sustained a traumatic brain injury leaving him with permanent, severe cognitive deficits.
A 10-year-old girl lost two toes and underwent 22 surgeries after her foot was pulled into a decades-old, poorly maintained Macy's escalator at Garden State Plaza in Paramus; three years later, Macy's and ThyssenKrupp Elevator settled for $15 million.
A Bergen County jury awarded $9.5 million to sisters Gina and Jamie Franzino after a 31-foot Boston Whaler collided with their small skiff in the Manasquan Inlet on Memorial Day weekend 2009, killing a third passenger and leaving both women with severe injuries.
A federal jury in the Southern District of New York awarded $8.67 million to Daniel Rivera, a construction worker who suffered permanent loss of use of his left arm and vision loss after an unsecured metal ladder at a Yonkers job site contacted a live electrical wire in August 2015.
Jose Criollo, 46, fell from an unguarded scaffolding tower after airborne debris struck his eyes, sustaining a complete spinal cord injury at T12-T13 that left him permanently paraplegic; the case settled for $8.225 million against the general contractor and his employer combined.
A Manhattan jury awarded $6.45 million to a 53-year-old avid salsa dancer who slipped on fish guts left on a Broadway sidewalk outside the Citarella gourmet grocery, dislocated her knee, tore three ligaments, and required at least 12 surgeries over 11 years.
A Kings County jury awarded $5.7 million after an unattended Jofaz Transportation school bus rolled down Nostrand Avenue and killed a young girl in Crown Heights, with the jury finding the bus company and its driver 40 percent liable.
A woman who slipped on grease in a common area shared by her employer and LAVO, a nightclub-restaurant then owned by a Madison Square Garden Entertainment subsidiary, suffered neck and back injuries requiring multiple surgeries and settled her case for $5.3 million in 2023.
Christopher DiGirolamo secured $4.4 million for a Wayne boy who suffered a traumatic brain injury and partial paralysis when a drunk driver rear-ended his family's minivan, with $950,000 coming from the bar that served the driver under New Jersey's Dram Shop Act.
After falling from a Sea Girt rooftop without a safety harness on May 4, 2017, and sustaining a complete cervical spinal cord injury that left him permanently quadriplegic, Roberto Carlos Bolanos settled his negligence claim against the general contractor for $4 million.
A New Jersey delivery worker received $2,225,000 in 2018 after a Ryder rental truck's lift gate collapsed mid-use, causing a fall that required multiple surgeries and left him with permanent physical restrictions.
A construction worker fell through a failed metal grate inside the Central Railroad of NJ Terminal building at Liberty State Park in 2015, suffering bone fractures and permanent spinal injuries that John Ratkowitz of Ginarte Gonzalez & Winograd resolved for $2 million in 2024.
An Essex County jury awarded $1,800,000 to a plumber who fell from unguarded construction stairs while carrying a bathtub, finding Hutchgrove Enterprises liable as the de facto general contractor on the project.
Christopher DiGirolamo secured a $1.62 million settlement for Carol Olsen, a 59-year-old Midland Park woman whose right thumb was bitten off by a fostered pit bull in Mahwah, in the case Olsen v. Eleventh Hour Rescue.
Christopher DiGirolamo secured a $900,000 settlement for the family of a 26-year-old college student who was struck and killed by a car while crossing at a marked crosswalk in New Jersey.
Michael Maggiano filed a $50 million suit on behalf of a Korean-American family whose 93-year-old mother's body was swapped into the wrong casket, with the error discovered as her casket was being lowered into a grave in November 2021.
Michael Maggiano filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of patients exposed to HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C after investigators found that HealthPlus Surgery Center in Saddle Brook, NJ had failed to properly sterilize surgical instruments and clean operating rooms between procedures.