Largest verdicts in Montana
12 independently-sourced personal-injury results from Montana firms, largest first. Each links to the full story, the firm, the attorneys, and the record behind the number.
Jeremy Vangsnes, a 21-year-old cross-country athlete who was left quadriplegic and brain-injured after a 2009 rollover on Interstate 90 near Belgrade, Montana, settled for $26 million against the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention after a judge ruled the driver was acting within the scope of his agency with the organization.
A federal jury awarded $15 million to two families whose loved ones died at Canyon Creek Memory Care during a 2020 COVID-19 outbreak, finding the Billings facility and its parent company Koelsch Senior Communities liable for neglect through chronic understaffing.
A Gallatin County jury awarded $15 million to Catharine Hudgens after her husband Lew died from carbon monoxide poisoning in their honeymoon cabin at Rainbow Ranch Lodge in Big Sky, Montana, returning what the plaintiff's firm described as more than double the county's previous largest verdict.
Steve Seltzer, a Western art authenticator sued for his expert opinion on a painting's true authorship, won an $11.25 million jury verdict for malicious prosecution after Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher pursued him on behalf of a collector who could not find a single expert to support his position.
Heenan and Cook secured a $9 million settlement from Custer County District High School on behalf of 32 former student athletes who were sexually abused over decades by longtime school athletic trainer James 'Doc' Jensen.
A Missoula County jury awarded $8.2 million, including $5.2 million in punitive damages, after Les Schwab sold a retread tire installed on the front steer axle of a cement truck that blew out on US-93 near Ronan, killing two women.
John Amsden served as co-lead counsel for hospital employees whose employers secretly accepted $26 million from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Montana in exchange for six years of exclusive coverage, inflating the workers' health-plan premiums.
A Butte federal jury returned a $2.5 million verdict for the families of two women killed when a Patrol Helicopters fuel-truck driver failed to signal before turning on a Park County road, and the Ninth Circuit unanimously affirmed the award.
After nearly a decade of litigation, a federal judge confirmed the U.S. government liable for a BIA officer who coerced a Northern Cheyenne woman into sex during a 2015 welfare call, affirming $1.6 million in damages.
The Montana Supreme Court reversed a 50% contributory-negligence deduction and restored the full $969,797 jury verdict for the widow of welding supervisor Andre Woods, who was killed when a hy-rail vehicle traveled more than four miles past its authorized track warrant limits and collided with an oncoming train.
A federal jury found that a North Dakota debt-collection law firm violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act by filing and pursuing a credit card lawsuit it knew was barred by Montana's statute of limitations, awarding Timothy McCollough $311,000 in statutory, emotional distress, and punitive damages.
Beck, Amsden and Stalpes co-counseled 98 Opportunity, Montana landowners through 13 years of litigation against ARCO over arsenic deposited by Anaconda's copper smelter, ultimately settling the case in 2021 after it twice reached the Montana Supreme Court and once reached the U.S. Supreme Court.