Largest verdicts in Delaware
6 independently-sourced personal-injury results from Delaware firms, largest first. Each links to the full story — the firm, the attorneys, and the record behind the number.
Thomas Crumplar and co-counsel secured a $77.425 million trust for 146 survivors of clergy sexual abuse as part of the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington's Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in 2011.
A Kent County jury awarded John Vai $63 million against defrocked priest Francis DeLuca and St. Elizabeth's Parish in Wilmington after finding both liable for childhood sexual abuse that began in the 1960s, producing what victim advocates called the largest compensatory verdict in U.S. clergy abuse history and the first time an individual parish was held accountable.
A Delaware federal jury awarded Brian Elliott $2.4 million in November 2013 after finding Marist Brother Damian Galligan liable for repeated sexual abuse that began when Elliott was eight years old.
Robert Pasquale secured a $2.39 million jury verdict for Cynthia Cowee after a truck struck her vehicle as she exited a Wilmington Country Club driveway onto Route 52, with the Delaware Supreme Court ultimately reinstating that award after the trial court had ordered a second trial.
Arthur Krawitz won a $1.775 million federal jury verdict for a 59-year-old ironworker who suffered spinal and wrist fractures after falling from open steel framing at a Delaware construction site where no fall protection had been provided. The jury added $500,000 on his wife's consortium claim, which the court later reduced on remittitur.
A federal jury awarded Autumn Lampkins $1.525 million after finding that a Delaware KFC franchisee demoted her, cut her hours, and subjected her to a hostile work environment because she was lactating; a judge later vacated the punitive-damages award and ordered a new trial on the discrimination claims.