Largest verdicts in Colorado

A Garfield County jury returned a $205 million verdict against Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park and ride manufacturer Soaring Eagle after finding that operators launched the Haunted Mine Drop with a six-year-old girl sitting on top of an unsecured seatbelt, overriding a warning alarm that should have stopped the ride.

A Maricopa County jury awarded $58.5 million to families who donated deceased relatives' bodies believing they would be used for medical research, only to learn the Biological Resource Center of Arizona had dismembered and sold the remains to brokers worldwide.

A federal jury awarded Georgina Perez $55.5 million after a Sunbeam Express Crock Multi-Cooker lid blew off and caused severe burns; the court later reduced the award to roughly $9.1 million under Colorado's statutory damages cap.

Chad Hemmat and co-counsel secured a $33 million wrongful death verdict for the mother of a 30-year-old Aurora engineer killed when a driver traveling nearly three times the posted speed limit ran a red light and T-boned his car at an I-225 interchange.

A Denver jury awarded $31.8 million to the family of an 82-year-old woman killed and other residents injured when a punctured Xcel Energy gas line exploded at Heather Gardens retirement community in 2018, assigning Xcel 12% of the fault.

A defective frac tank exploded under an Air Force veteran at a Weld County well pad in 2019, and a federal jury in Denver returned $30 million, though Colorado's cap on pain-and-suffering damages later cut roughly $14 million.

A Weld County jury awarded $27.6 million to a family whose newborn daughter developed E. coli sepsis and meningitis after nursing staff failed to notify a physician despite documented signs of infection, leaving her with permanent brain injury and cerebral palsy.

A Denver jury awarded $26.6 million to two adult siblings whose parents were both killed when a drowsy CWRV Transport driver rear-ended their stopped vehicle at 75 mph on a Colorado highway.

A Missouri federal jury awarded Mary Bayes $21 million after her Biomet M2a-Magnum metal-on-metal hip implant failed catastrophically, requiring seven revision surgeries and leaving her with permanently constrained hip function.

Burg Simpson secured a $19.48 million arbitration award for the homeowners' association of an 82-unit Aurora, Colorado townhome community after proving Century Communities built the development with widespread structural, drainage, and fire-code defects.

A developmentally disabled man left with a brain injury and quadriplegia after a commercial pickup rear-ended his car won $18,809,431 from a Denver jury in May 2024, ranked the sixth-largest Colorado verdict of the year.

A temporary electrical box exploded and electrocuted flooring installer Brian Warembourg, and a Boulder County jury returned a $16 million verdict against the electrical contractor, the largest premises liability award in Colorado history.

A Denver jury awarded electrician Jon Valaer $8.4 million after contractor Q3 left three energized wires hidden inside a power pedestal that shocked him and left him with complex regional pain syndrome.

A Denver jury awarded $7,110,624 to Deysi Cari after she was struck by a vehicle while crossing a marked crosswalk with the right-of-way, with the defendant having admitted liability before trial.

A Colorado jury awarded $6,945,040 to a 60-year-old shopper who slipped on solvent residue at a Kohl's self-checkout and developed Functional Neurological Disorder, after the store's expert accused her of faking her symptoms.

A Boulder jury awarded $5.3 million to a man who fractured his spine after falling from an unsteady ladder when the homeowner walked away without warning.

A federal jury returned a $4 million verdict against Saguache County Jail officials after finding that staff ignored repeated suicidal statements made by 27-year-old Jackson Maes before his death in November 2019.

After Cincinnati Casualty told an Aurora man he owed nothing following three spinal surgeries from a multi-car crash, a Denver jury returned a verdict of more than $3 million for breach of contract and insurance bad faith.

A Denver jury awarded $2.45 million to an 81-year-old nursing home resident who suffered serious leg fractures after an ambulance driver failed to properly secure her wheelchair restraints during transport, causing her to slam into a metal barrier.

A Denver jury awarded $2.25 million against a drunk driver who pulled into the path of motorcyclist Abdul Alhilo and then fled the scene, and the Colorado Court of Appeals later affirmed the verdict, including its exemplary damages.

After Owners Insurance refused to fairly pay a rear-end collision victim's underinsured motorist claim and offered only $150,000 on a $1 million policy, a federal jury found the insurer liable for breach of contract and statutory bad faith. The district court applied Colorado's unreasonable-delay statute to bring Donald Etherton's judgment to $2.25 million, a result the Tenth Circuit affirmed in full in 2016.

A Denver jury returned a $2.1 million verdict for George Hodge after he slipped on ice at a storage unit and suffered a complete retinal detachment that permanently ended useful vision in his right eye.

Chad Hemmat secured a $1.2 million jury verdict for Della Gallegos after her former attorney, Patric LeHouillier, allowed the statute of limitations on her brain-tumor medical malpractice claim to expire, leaving her blind in one eye, partially deaf, and unable to work.

After seven years of around-the-clock caregiving at a Denver assisted living home, Aleta Ayo won a jury verdict and a court judgment of $830,737 against Meadow Vista Assisted Living for unpaid minimum wage and overtime.

Ramos Law attorney Jessica Schlatter took a rear-end collision case to trial in Douglas County and won a $350,350 jury verdict in 2023, holding both the driver and a second party responsible through negligent-entrustment and vicarious-liability claims.

An El Paso County civil jury found auto lot owner Jovan Milanovic liable for the 2009 fatal shooting of Robert Johnson Fox, awarding $269,500 to Fox's three-year-old daughter after ruling that Colorado's Make My Day law does not shield business owners who use deadly force against trespassers.

A Colorado jury returned a $140,000 verdict in Johnson v. State Farm, an underinsured motorist and insurance bad faith case that Ramos Law's Jessica Schlatter tried after the insurer refused to pay the claim.

Burg Simpson secured a confidential settlement for the three children of Jason Varnish, 46, a New Jersey finance executive who died of positional asphyxiation after his jacket became entangled in a Blue Sky Basin chairlift at Vail in February 2020.