New Mexico Personal Injury Verdicts and Settlements

A Dallas jury awarded $860,012,006 to the family of Kiersten Smith, a 29-year-old woman killed when a construction crane collapsed onto her Old East Dallas apartment during a 2019 storm, finding developer Greystar fully liable for failing to allow the crane to weather vane.

A Rio Arriba County jury awarded $485 million to a child known as G.S. who was repeatedly sexually assaulted by a foster parent licensed through Acadia Healthcare's New Mexico subsidiaries, despite documented abuse allegations against that foster parent dating to 2000.

Acadia Healthcare agreed to pay $400 million to resolve three civil cases arising from its Desert Hills and Familyworks foster care program in New Mexico, where licensed foster parent Clarence Garcia sexually abused multiple children in his care.

An Ector County jury awarded $262.5 million to Isaac Sanchez, left quadriplegic when a drunk driver who had been served 19 drinks at Linx Bar and Grill rear-ended his motorcycle at a North Odessa intersection in June 2021.

A Santa Fe jury awarded $190 million to the families of two young people killed and three others seriously injured when an intoxicated View Homes Inc. executive crossed the center line on Highway 213 near Chaparral, New Mexico, on January 17, 2023.

An El Paso jury returned a $104 million verdict against Mesilla Valley Transportation after its driver fell asleep on I-40 in Oklahoma and crashed into a disabled truck, killing Orlando Robles, 38, who was sleeping in the sleeper berth.

A Santa Fe jury returned a $73.2 million verdict, the largest medical malpractice award in New Mexico history at the time, after finding that an OB/GYN and his clinic failed to recognize a high-risk pregnancy, leading to a prolonged birth that left an infant with permanent brain damage and a non-functional right arm.

A New Mexico jury found German device maker Biotronik and its sales representative liable for conspiring with a Las Cruces cardiologist and a hospital to implant medically unnecessary pacemakers in dozens of patients for profit.

Kevin Glasheen won a $60.5 million jury verdict in 1997, at the time the largest railroad accident verdict in Texas, after a Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight train killed a Friona family at a grade crossing in August 1993.

An Albuquerque jury awarded $52 million in punitive damages against Professional Underwriters Liability Insurance Company after finding the insurer deliberately concealed notice of patient deaths and then refused to defend the physician it had covered.

A New Mexico jury found Utility Trailer Manufacturing negligent for failing to install side underride guards, awarding the family of a 16-year-old killed in a 2015 highway fire crash a net verdict of $18.9 million.

A federal judge awarded $10.5 million to the family of Esther Nakajjigo, a 25-year-old Ugandan human-rights activist decapitated by a wind-driven metal gate left unsecured for two weeks at Arches National Park, in what the court called the largest federal wrongful-death verdict in Utah history.

An Albuquerque jury awarded $7.75 million to Michael Webb and his wife after Presbyterian Hospital ICU staff failed to reposition him for extended stretches, causing a devastating Stage 4 pressure ulcer that remained unhealed more than five years later.

Luna County agreed to a $7 million settlement after a sheriff's deputy driving more than 130 mph T-boned a family's car on a rural New Mexico highway, killing a 14-month-old boy and severely injuring his mother.

A state district judge awarded $6 million to the family of Christopher Torres, a 27-year-old man with schizophrenia, after finding that two plainclothes APD detectives escalated a routine warrant service into a fatal encounter, then shot him three times in the back without justification.

New Mexico's child welfare agency agreed to a $5.5 million federal civil rights settlement after caseworkers placed an eight-year-old girl with her father, who then beat her to death, despite a documented history of abuse allegations against him.

An Albuquerque federal jury awarded $5.4 million to the widow of Martin Leon, a California man who died after a sleep-deprived FedEx Ground contractor driver rear-ended a tractor-trailer on Interstate 40 near Grants, New Mexico.

New Mexico settled for $4.9 million after CYFD received multiple abuse referrals for a four-year-old boy, documented injuries consistent with serious harm at an urgent care visit, and still returned him to the home where he was beaten to death 52 days later.

A New Mexico judge awarded Michael Brian McDonald $2,027,424.91 after finding that Zimmer's dual-modular Kinectiv hip implant shed metal debris into his bloodstream, causing metallosis and forcing two revision surgeries.

New Mexico State University agreed to pay $1 million and require annual consent and sexual assault training for every enrolled student after a lawsuit alleged the university failed to investigate or protect a freshman who was raped in her dorm room in September 2022.

Davis Kelin Law Firm secured a $439,000 settlement for the widow of Scott Pierce, killed by serial killer Clifton Bloomfield in 2008 after Albuquerque police failed to arrest Bloomfield for two prior murders and multiple probation violations.

Adrian Vega secured a $300,000 settlement for Santa Fe police officer Damian Vigil, who was severely mauled by K-9 Ayke during a department demonstration after superiors pressured him to act as a suspect without protective headgear.

As co-counsel in a landmark 2020 federal class action, The Crecca Law Firm helped secure a court-supervised settlement requiring New Mexico to rebuild its foster care system around trauma-informed practices for roughly 4,700 children in state custody.

Kevin Glasheen secured a confidential settlement from Union Pacific for 26 of 43 plaintiffs injured when a freight train struck a Veterans Day parade float in Midland, Texas in 2012, killing four decorated veterans.