Largest verdicts in Massachusetts
14 independently-sourced personal-injury results from Massachusetts firms, largest first. Each links to the full story — the firm, the attorneys, and the record behind the number.
The family of Greg Sharrigan, killed when a gas leak ignited at his Maynard home in September 2021, sued Eversource for $450 million, alleging the utility detected the underground leak three years before the fatal explosion and never fixed it.
Peter Merrigan of Sweeney Merrigan Personal Injury Lawyers represented 125 Massachusetts cities and towns in claims against Johnson and Johnson and the three largest opioid distributors, recovering $84.1 million in aggregate from the national opioid settlements.
A Middlesex County jury returned the largest personal-injury verdict in Massachusetts history after finding that an obstetrician waited more than five hours to perform an emergency C-section despite clear signs of fetal distress, causing a Dracut boy to develop cerebral palsy.
A Norfolk Superior Court jury awarded Andrea Larkin $35.4 million after finding that Dedham Medical Associates failed to document a known brain abnormality, leaving her obstetrician unaware of a condition that made vaginal delivery dangerous.
A Suffolk County jury awarded $30.55 million to the family of a boy left with catastrophic brain damage after a traveling nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital abandoned continuous fetal heart-rate monitoring during a prolonged second stage of labor.
An Essex Superior Court jury awarded $29 million to the two daughters of Joseph Brown, 43, after Salem Hospital emergency physicians failed to order a CT scan that would have revealed a fatal aortic aneurysm and dissection in time for lifesaving surgery.
A Suffolk County jury awarded $28 million, including $25 million in punitive damages, after Father's Huddle Cafe in Boston served alcohol to underage patrons who attacked Thomas Christopher, 23, chasing him into traffic where he was struck and killed; the Massachusetts Appeals Court affirmed the verdict against the bar on January 28, 2003.
A Salem jury awarded $20.6 million, including $18 million in punitive damages, after a defective Banzai inflatable pool slide sold by Toys R Us collapsed and killed a 29-year-old woman in Andover, Massachusetts; the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld the full verdict in 2013.
A Middlesex Superior Court jury awarded Steven Luppold $20 million after Lowell General Hospital emergency staff misdiagnosed a leg blood clot as sciatica on two separate visits, delaying treatment until amputation was unavoidable.
A decayed tree from a neighbor's rental lot in Orange, Massachusetts fell on three women in August 2024, causing traumatic brain injuries and fractures; Franklin County Superior Court entered a $17.6 million judgment against the property owner in March 2026.
A Suffolk Superior Court jury awarded $16.7 million after a Brigham and Women's Hospital radiologist read a 2006 chest X-ray as normal, missing a visible lung nodule that would develop into terminal cancer within 13 months.
Lubin and Meyer secured a $15 million settlement for the family of six-month-old Jackson Kekula, who suffered catastrophic brain injury after going without oxygen for more than 20 minutes during a sleep study at Boston Children's Hospital and died 12 days later.
A Suffolk Superior Court jury awarded $13.5 million (a $9.4 million verdict plus interest) to the family of Amy Altman, 40, who died of a flesh-eating bacterial infection in July 2003 after Dana-Farber oncologists failed to investigate 17 consecutive days of diarrhea during an experimental chemotherapy protocol.
Sugarman and Sugarman secured a confidential settlement for the family of a four-year-old Dudley boy who died after falling 18 feet through an oversized gap between a Sears escalator and its railing, a gap that exceeded state safety code and lacked a required barricade.