Largest verdicts in Michigan

A Detroit federal jury awarded former Michigan inmate Kohchise Jackson $307.6 million after the state's for-profit prison health contractor refused to pay for the $919 surgery that would have reversed his colostomy.

An Oakland County jury awarded $144.5 million after a delayed cesarean left a Macomb Township girl with a permanent brain injury, a verdict the Michigan Court of Appeals later upheld before it was reduced to roughly $42 million.

After spinal surgery at the Detroit Medical Center's Children's Hospital of Michigan left a 10-year-old girl partially paralyzed and permanently incontinent, and her surgeon took two vacations before the hardware came out, a Wayne County jury awarded $135 million.

An Oakland County jury awarded the Tran family $130,571,897 in 2018 after finding that Beaumont Hospital technicians failed to call a code blue or provide chest compressions when a two-month-old infant suffered a breath-hold spell during a renal scan, leaving him with permanent brain damage and cerebral palsy.

A Wayne County jury found Henry Ford Hospital negligent for a delay of over two hours in executing an ordered emergency C-section, awarding $120.9 million to a Detroit mother and her son, who was left with severe cerebral palsy and requires full-time care.

A federal jury in Atlanta awarded $100 million to Jerry Blasingame, a 65-year-old man rendered quadriplegic after an Atlanta police officer tased him without warning during a foot pursuit, though the award was ultimately reduced to $21 million following post-trial rulings and a 2026 Eleventh Circuit decision.

A Johnson County jury returned a record $97.4 million verdict for an Iowa City newborn left with permanent brain damage after a forceps and vacuum delivery, an award the Iowa Supreme Court later reversed, ordering a new trial.

An Oakland County jury found Kroger solely liable and awarded HVAC technician Brian Mierendorf and his wife $76.7 million after a failed R-22 refrigerant line at a Bloomfield Township store burned and destroyed most of both his hands.

A Wayne County jury awarded $75 million against Nicholas Remington, who gave 21-year-old Denis Preka a fatal dose of MDMA disguised as Adderall, in what reporters described as Michigan's largest verdict for a single death.

A Wayne County, Michigan jury awarded roughly $55.5 million, among the largest medical malpractice verdicts in the state at the time, against Henry Ford Health System after an emergency room physician sent home a child in respiratory distress who suffered a respiratory arrest the next morning and permanent brain damage. The trial court reduced the gross award to present value and applied Michigan's statutory cap on noneconomic damages, and the Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment in 2005.

Geoffrey Fieger and Jack Beam won the largest birth-injury verdict in Cook County history against the University of Chicago Medical Center, after a mother in fetal distress was left without an obstetrician for hours before an emergency cesarean.

Andrew Kochanowski of Sommers Schwartz served as co-class counsel in a RICO class action against Stream Energy and its Ignite MLM arm, securing a landmark Fifth Circuit en banc ruling on class certification and a $46 million settlement for roughly 170,000 former distributors who lost money in what plaintiffs alleged was an illegal pyramid scheme.

A Wayne County jury found the Detroit Medical Center liable for the death of 26-year-old Terrea Holly, whose pulmonary embolism was treated as a virus and sent home from the emergency room.

An Oakland County jury awarded Brian Iminski $32,375,683 after a First Student school bus ran a red light and T-boned his work pickup, leaving him with brain and back injuries.

An Oakland County jury found Warner Bros. and The Jenny Jones Show liable for the wrongful death of Scott Amedure and assessed $25 million, an award the Michigan Court of Appeals later reversed.

A Cook County jury awarded $23.5 million after doctors at Presence St. Joseph Hospital waited more than three hours to perform an emergency cesarean, leaving a newborn brain-damaged from oxygen loss.

A Wayne County jury awarded $22.6 million to port truck driver Burt Holt, who suffered a traumatic brain injury and permanent disability when a negligent driver struck him while he inspected his trailer at a Detroit shipping terminal in 2011.

A Wayne County jury awarded $20,595,570 to Terry Novak after a van driver for FSS Technologies lost control, crossed the center line, and struck Novak while he was clearing snow from his own driveway in Romulus.

A federal jury in Detroit found that Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan illegally fired longtime IT employee Lisa Domski after denying her Catholic religious objection to its COVID-19 vaccine mandate, awarding her $12.7 million.

Attorneys Trenton Kashima and Jason Thompson of Sommers Schwartz PC secured a $12 million class action settlement against Cytosport, Inc. over false protein content claims on Muscle Milk products.

A Genesee County jury found the Michigan Department of Corrections liable for race discrimination and retaliation against Lisa and Cedric Griffey and awarded them $11,670,128.33, a verdict the Court of Appeals later affirmed in full.

A Wayne County jury found the City of Detroit negligent after a tire came off a city transit van and struck a 59-year-old veteran in the head, returning an $8.3 million verdict that reached about $10.2 million with interest.

Michigan State University agreed to pay $5 million each to the families of Arielle Anderson and Brian Fraser, two of the three students shot and killed on campus on February 13, 2023, with Ven Johnson negotiating both settlements before any lawsuit was filed.

Steven Gursten secured $9 million for a Michigan man who lost both legs after an Atsalis Brothers work truck rear-ended and split his Saturn on I-94, a figure Michigan Lawyers Weekly reported as the state's largest pain-and-suffering recovery of the preceding decade.

A Genesee County jury awarded Amber Briolat $8.3 million for injuries from a 2014 intersection crash, after Auto-Owners Insurance contested fault and offered her only $300,000 before trial.

Geoffrey Fieger won an $8 million Wayne County wrongful death verdict against the Northville Moose Lodge and Leonard's Syrups after an unvented carbon dioxide soda system asphyxiated volunteer Mary Katherine Simpson.

Brian McKeen of McKeen & Associates served as one of the co-lead plaintiff counsel who negotiated an $8 million civil settlement for 43 patients given medically unnecessary cancer treatment by convicted oncologist Farid Fata, approved by Oakland County Circuit Court on July 20, 2016.

An Oakland County jury awarded Brent Grant $7.9 million on his uninsured motorist claim against Auto-Owners Insurance after the company offered $20,000 to settle, and the verdict survived the insurer's appeal.

Sommers Schwartz secured a $6.55 million settlement for a class of roughly 28,000 exotic dancers at 64 Deja Vu clubs in 18 states who were misclassified as independent contractors and denied minimum-wage protections under the FLSA.

A federal jury awarded $6.4 million to the estate of Wade Jones, a 40-year-old man who died after jail medical staff left his acute alcohol withdrawal untreated for more than 36 hours; the Sixth Circuit upheld the verdict in August 2024.

A Macomb County jury awarded Tony and Lisa Broeren $5.65 million after a Chrysler employee ran Tony over with a company pickup and left him with a brain injury, and the trial judge upheld the verdict in full.

A federal jury in Detroit awarded Daniel Reiff $4 million plus $50,000 in punitive damages after finding that Clinton Township Officer Broc Setty punched him hard enough to rupture his eye and leave him blind on that side.

Steven Gursten secured a $3.9 million wrongful death settlement after a gravel hauler driven by a trucker on epilepsy medication, in a rig that was out of service in more than five ways, killed Patrick Nunez on I-75 in Detroit.

After two federal jury verdicts found that Frankenmuth violated the Loesel family's equal-protection rights by passing a zoning ordinance designed to block a Walmart land sale, the city settled for $3.7 million in November 2014.

A Jackson County jury awarded James and Kim Fairley $3.5 million after a Schiber Truck Co. tractor-trailer rear-ended their minivan and pushed it into oncoming traffic, leaving James Fairley with a traumatic brain injury and two fractured vertebrae.

A Wayne County jury awarded $3,024,000 to Mariah Martinez after finding that Dr. Yasser Awaad of Oakwood Healthcare in Dearborn had misdiagnosed her with epilepsy at age nine and put her on four years of anti-seizure medication she did not need.

A Wayne County jury awarded $2.77 million in October 2019 to Claire Linzell after finding that pediatric neurologist Dr. Yasser Awaad had misdiagnosed her with epilepsy as a young child when she actually had an autism spectrum disorder, subjecting her to years of anti-seizure medication she did not need.

An Oakland County jury awarded John Hoye $2 million after a four-day trial over a 2021 White Lake Township crash, seven times the $275,000 Auto-Owners Insurance had put on the table before trial.

A federal jury awarded $800,000 to a Black HR director at the Genesee County Road Commission whose disability accommodation was removed and who faced escalating retaliation after she filed race discrimination complaints, with the Sixth Circuit affirming the verdict in July 2025.