Largest verdicts in Illinois

Todd Smith served as co-lead counsel on the economic loss track of the Takata airbag MDL, helping secure a combined $702.7 million class settlement from Honda ($605 million) and Nissan ($97.7 million), approved by Judge Federico Moreno in March 2018.

Boehringer Ingelheim agreed to pay $650 million in May 2014 to resolve approximately 4,000 federal lawsuits claiming the blood thinner Pradaxa caused life-threatening bleeding injuries without adequate warnings, in an MDL presided over by Judge David Herndon in the Southern District of Illinois where the court appointed TorHoerman Law's Tor Hoerman as one of five plaintiffs' co-lead counsel.

A St. Louis jury awarded $495 million against Abbott Laboratories after finding the company failed to warn that its Similac cow's milk formula could cause necrotizing enterocolitis in premature infants.

A Cook County jury found Sterigenics and its corporate owners liable for Sue Kamuda's breast cancer from ethylene oxide emissions and awarded $363 million, then the largest individual-plaintiff verdict in Illinois history.

A Cook County jury awarded Tierney Darden $148 million after a 750-pound pedestrian shelter toppled onto her at O'Hare and severed her spine, a record the city later settled for $115 million.

Robert Clifford co-led the families of 68 people killed when American Eagle Flight 4184 iced over and crashed near Roselawn, Indiana, to a record $110 million settlement and an apology in open court.

A Cook County jury returned a $101 million verdict against West Suburban Medical Center after staff ignored fetal monitoring for six hours during labor, though a pre-verdict high-low agreement limited the family's recovery to $50 million.

Power Rogers LLP recovered $100 million for Rev. Scott and Janet Willis after six of their nine children were killed when a mudflap assembly fell from a tractor-trailer on I-94 and ignited their minivan, a case that ultimately exposed an Illinois license-bribery scheme and sent Governor George Ryan to federal prison.

A Cook County jury awarded $95.5 million to a truck driver who lost both legs when improperly loaded carbon steel bundles fell from a crane during unloading, with a 10% comparative fault reduction bringing the net award to $85.9 million, the highest double-amputation verdict in Illinois history.

A suburban Chicago man who lost both legs above the knee when a car jumped the curb and pinned him against a Bensenville 7-Eleven secured a $91 million settlement, the largest pretrial personal injury recovery in Illinois history, after Power Rogers LLP showed the company had documented thousands of similar storefront crashes and still refused to install protective bollards.

A Cook County jury awarded $79.85 million to the family of a 10-year-old girl killed when an unauthorized Chicago police pursuit ended in a multi-car crash, a verdict the parties later resolved for $62.5 million.

A Cook County jury awarded $75,859,000 to a baby girl left with permanent brain damage and physical injuries after doctors needlessly turned her during a twin delivery at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

Thomas Demetrio of Corboy & Demetrio represented seven of the people killed and injured when a suspended work platform fell from the John Hancock Center in 2002, part of a $75 million global settlement reached on the eve of trial.

A Cook County jury found plastic surgeon Dr. Ayoub Sayeg liable for the death of Idalia Corcoles, a 39-year-old mother of four who bled to death after liposuction and a tummy tuck, in a case that produced a $66.262 million judgment.

Clifford Law Offices secured a $60 million settlement for Sarah Grasser, 31, left paraplegic when another driver swerved to avoid a deep pothole in an I-55 work zone and struck her car, rolling it into a ditch.

A 54-year-old woman underwent a routine bronchoscopy for a possible tuberculosis biopsy, but physicians ignored oximeter alarms and delayed intubation until she had suffered irreversible anoxic brain damage, leaving her with locked-in syndrome; the Cook County jury returned a $55.4 million verdict against the responsible physicians, then the largest medical malpractice award in Illinois history.

A Winnebago County jury awarded $52 million to the Krischon family for a 2018 crash caused by an off-tracking Panera Bread semi-truck that killed an 88-year-old man and seriously injured his son, finding the company and its driver 90 percent at fault. The award was part of a $67 million total verdict that also compensated a second family represented by separate counsel.

A Cook County jury awarded $51 million to John Reinke after OSF Heart of Mary Medical Center discharged him without testing his blood sugar, leading to a diabetic cardiac arrest that left him with a permanent brain injury.

A $45 million payout for 15-year-old Nathen Jones, left unable to walk, speak, or feed himself after Chicago officers chased a car over a minor traffic stop, believed to be the largest the city has ever paid for a police-pursuit crash.

A Cook County jury found Advocate Condell Medical Center responsible for the death of a 47-year-old quadriplegic father who suffered fatal baclofen withdrawal while waiting for a delayed surgery to replace his medication pump, and the verdict was later affirmed on appeal.

A Coles County jury awarded $40 million to a 19-year-old and her parents after finding that hospital staff at Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center delayed calling a physician during a placental abruption, causing preventable birth injuries including cerebral palsy.

A 12-year-old girl suffered permanent, catastrophic brain damage after cardiac arrest during a PICC-line procedure at Highland Park Hospital, and Power Rogers secured a $40 million settlement that the Jury Verdict Reporter identified as the largest-ever Cook County recovery for a brain-injured minor.

A Cook County jury awarded Antonio DeAngelo $39.9 million, an Illinois record for a stroke case, after a physician tied to Advocate Physician Partners left his dangerously high blood pressure untreated.

A Cook County jury awarded the Yoder family $38.3 million after a multi-truck pileup on Interstate 90 near Rockford killed their four-year-old daughter and left their two-year-old son permanently disabled, and the verdict survived appeal in 2008.

A Cook County jury awarded $33.4 million to the estates of three lawyers shot and killed at a downtown Chicago office tower after finding the building's security company failed to stop a known threat from reaching the 38th floor.

A Cook County jury awarded William "Billy" Fern $32.7 million after emergency room doctors failed to diagnose the blood clot that cost him his foot, the largest Illinois verdict on record for the loss of a leg or foot.

A Cook County jury awarded commuter Renea Poppel $29.6 million after a Metra Rock Island train took a 10 mph crossover at 69 mph and derailed, the largest Illinois verdict for one person injured in a mass-transit crash.

After a Chicago police pursuit that broke department policy killed Stacy Vaughn-Harrell and an earlier $10.2 million jury verdict was thrown out on appeal, the City Council approved a $27 million settlement for her family.

A jury awarded $26,255,367 to Maryam Hedayati after a driver ran a red light and struck her in a marked crosswalk, leaving her with a severed leg, a shattered leg, and catastrophic brain trauma.

A Los Angeles jury unanimously held Conagra Brands fully liable and awarded $25 million to Roland Esparza, who developed severe bronchiolitis obliterans after years of daily exposure to butter-flavored PAM cooking spray fumes.

A federal jury in St. Louis awarded $25 million to the parents of a two-year-old girl who drowned after climbing into a Bestway above-ground pool using an exterior nylon strap the manufacturer had built into the design.

A Lake County jury awarded $25 million to Patricia Amsden after her husband Phillip was struck and killed on Interstate 65 by a driver with a blood-alcohol level three times the legal limit, holding the driver, his employer, and two bars that served him accountable.

A Cook County jury awarded $21.5 million, a state record for a drowning, after a six-year-old boy who could not swim was left unsupervised in a Bridgeview Park District camp pool, and an appellate court later affirmed the full award.

A Cook County judge approved an $18.5 million settlement for Gabriela Cedillo, a 24-year-old extra who suffered catastrophic brain damage when a snapped tow cable tore through her windshield during filming of Transformers: Dark of the Moon in Hammond, Indiana.

After one of the deadliest building failures in Chicago history, Corboy & Demetrio's Francis Patrick Murphy led 14 of the victims and their families to a $16.6 million global settlement against the property owner and the porch builder.

After management at a Rogers Park senior building kept the heat running through a May 2022 heat wave, three elderly residents died of heat exposure; their families settled for $16 million against the building's owner and property manager.

A Coles County jury awarded Mark Allen $14 million after Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center failed to diagnose a spinal epidural abscess across three emergency visits, leaving him with permanent spinal cord injuries.

A Cook County jury delivered Illinois's largest-ever nursing home verdict, $12.2 million, finding that chronic understaffing at Lakeview Rehabilitation and Nursing Center caused Shirley Adams to develop fatal pressure wounds during her stay.

A Cook County jury held the City of Chicago liable for the 2018 death of Tuong Lam, 61, who bled to death over about 17 minutes after a driver fleeing an unauthorized high-speed police pursuit struck his car.

A Cook County jury awarded a Chicago physician $10 million, with $1 million more to her husband, after a severe fourth-degree tear from her 2010 delivery at Rush University Medical Center went undiagnosed.

Chicago agreed to pay $9.5 million to Catalin Dumitrescu, who suffered catastrophic injuries in 2014 when his bicycle wheel lodged in exposed streetcar rails that had been buried in an East Hyde Park street and then re-designated as a bike route without removing the decades-old hazard.

The estate of helicopter pilot Michael Russell recovered $8.15 million, then Illinois's highest reported product-liability settlement involving a helicopter, after a defective tail-rotor drive-shaft bearing caused his Agusta 109C to spin out of control and crash near DuPage Airport. Todd Smith and Brian LaCien, who later founded Smith LaCien LLP, handled the case at their prior firm, Power, Rogers & Smith P.C.

A Cook County jury awarded $8.125 million to the estate of Althea Wright after a radiologist spent roughly 80 seconds reviewing a chest X-ray that showed a visible mass in her left lung, missing a Stage I cancer that advanced to fatal Stage III over the next 14 months.

Silver Cross Hospital paid $8 million on the first day of jury selection to resolve a wrongful death suit brought by the family of a 61-year-old woman who died within 26 hours of admission after hospital staff failed to treat a septic kidney infection that records showed was apparent within two hours of her arrival.

The family of Michelle Swallow, 30, recovered $7.3 million after a bile duct procedure at Presence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Joliet created an unrepaired bowel leak that led to fatal sepsis.

A Cook County jury awarded $7.25 million to a 32-year-old woman and her husband after surgical errors and a delayed response to postpartum hemorrhage during her cesarean delivery led to a hysterectomy that left her unable to have children.

A Cook County jury awarded $5.5 million to the family of Sandy Brooks, an 85-year-old dialysis patient who died after a Richton Park nursing home sent him to none of his scheduled treatments, tying the largest nursing home neglect verdict in county history.

A Cook County jury awarded $5.5 million to the family of Bettye Patterson, 80, who struggled to breathe for about 20 minutes after a power outage shut off her supplemental oxygen at a Palos Heights nursing home.

CampGroup LLC paid $4.5 million to settle the wrongful death of a 15-year-old Buffalo Grove boy who drowned during an unsupervised nighttime lake swim at Greenwoods Camp for Boys in Michigan, a result the Jury Verdict Reporter ranked as Illinois's second-highest settlement for the drowning death of a minor.

Abels & Annes, co-counseling with Hilfman & Martin, secured a settlement of nearly $3.2 million against the Archdiocese of Chicago and Cardinal Francis George on behalf of a man abused by Fr. Daniel McCormack throughout his middle and high school years.

Abels & Annes co-counseled a $3.2 million settlement for a childhood sexual abuse survivor against the Archdiocese of Chicago and Cardinal Francis George after the archdiocese kept defrocked priest Daniel McCormack in ministry despite warnings from its own review board.

A Cook County jury awarded $3 million to the family of Norma Darnell, 76, who died of pneumonia after a nurse at Alden Courts of Waterford in Aurora gave her about ten times her prescribed hydromorphone dose.

Disparti Law Group and co-counsel reached a $2 million settlement with Chicago Public Schools on behalf of three elementary-school boys who were sexually abused by their gym teacher over several years at Federico Garcia Lorca Elementary on Chicago's Northwest Side.

A St. Louis jury found diacetyl distributor Elan Chemical Company liable for the debilitating lung disease suffered by two food-flavoring plant workers, returning a $1 million verdict for each man in March 2023.

In a unanimous November 2023 ruling, the Illinois Supreme Court held that auto insurers cannot strip uninsured-motorist coverage from family members who are struck as pedestrians or cyclists, establishing binding statewide precedent in a case argued by Disparti Law attorneys Jonel Metaj and Larry Disparti.

Thomas Demetrio negotiated a confidential settlement for Dr. David Dao, the 69-year-old physician dragged off an overbooked United flight at O'Hare in a 2017 video that spread around the world.

Nearly nine years after seven Chicago-area people died from cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules, founder Philip Corboy helped the victims' families reach a confidential settlement with McNeil Consumer Products as jury selection was about to begin.