Largest verdicts in Washington

A King County jury awarded $857 million to seven former Sky Valley Education Center students and parent volunteers who developed brain damage, autoimmune disorders, and other serious illnesses after PCBs from Monsanto-made fluorescent light fixtures leaked throughout the Monroe, Washington school.

A King County jury awarded $275 million to thirteen Sky Valley Education Center students and families who suffered neurological injuries from PCB-contaminated light fixtures manufactured by Monsanto.

A King County jury awarded three Monroe, Washington teachers $185 million after finding that PCBs manufactured by Monsanto leached from fluorescent light ballasts at their school and caused permanent neurological injuries.

A King County jury awarded $165 million to eight former Sky Valley Education Center employees, including the estate of one deceased plaintiff, after finding Pharmacia LLC liable for selling PCB-containing fluorescent light ballasts without adequate warning.

A King County jury awarded $123 million to 40 plaintiffs after five international students were killed and dozens injured when a Ride the Ducks amphibious vehicle suffered a catastrophic axle fracture on Seattle's Aurora Bridge in 2015.

A Clark County jury awarded retired Air Force veteran Michael Washington and his wife Josephine $104 million after finding that propofol manufacturers Teva Parenteral Medicines and Baxter Healthcare knowingly supplied oversized anesthetic vials that clinics routinely reused, spreading hepatitis C to patients.

A King County jury awarded $100 million to four plaintiffs who suffered neurological, hormonal, and cancer-related illnesses after years of exposure to PCBs from defective fluorescent light fixtures at a Monroe, Washington school.

A Pierce County jury awarded William Tisdale $91 million after he was beaten with an aluminum baseball bat outside an APRO-owned Union 76 convenience store in Parkland, Washington, leaving him with multiple skull fractures and permanent cognitive damage.

A King County jury awarded $72 million to two former Sky Valley Education Center students who developed chronic neurological injuries after years of PCB exposure from aging fluorescent light fixtures manufactured by Monsanto.

A King County jury awarded $72 million to two former students of Sky Valley Education Center in Monroe, Washington, finding Monsanto liable for chronic neurological injuries caused by PCB-containing fluorescent light ballasts installed in the school decades earlier.

A Thurston County jury awarded $57 million to roughly 22,000 live-in home-care providers after finding that Washington's Department of Social and Health Services unlawfully cut their pay through an automatic 15 percent reduction in authorized care hours.

A Pierce County jury awarded $44.7 million to an EMT and volunteer firefighter left with permanent injuries after an SUV driver turned left through an uncontrolled intersection and into his path -- a verdict Washington courts later upheld in full.

An Essex County jury awarded $30 million against Newark Public Schools and the City of Newark after finding both institutions failed to stop a school aide who sexually abused a student repeatedly from 1991 to 1995, beginning when the child was ten years old.

Washington state paid $28 million to a young woman left quadriplegic after her car struck an unguarded overpass pillar on I-5 near DuPont, where WSDOT had funding and a plan to install a protective barrier but never completed the work.

A San Francisco jury returned what was then the largest personal-injury verdict ever against the city after a Municipal Railway repair truck ran a red light, struck another vehicle, and jumped a sidewalk, killing a four-year-old girl and injuring three others walking with her.

A Middlesex County jury awarded $25 million (reduced by court cap to $12 million) in the first Child Victims Act case brought to trial against the State of New Jersey, finding the state 99% liable for failing to protect a girl from sexual abuse across three foster placements.

King County paid its largest personal injury settlement on record after a 38-year-old mother of two was mauled by two dogs the county had repeatedly been warned about but failed to remove.

Scott Bliss suffered catastrophic brain injury when a Scarsella Bros. dump truck made an illegal U-turn on an I-5 WSDOT construction ramp in Centralia, yielding what is believed to be the largest WSDOT settlement in Lewis County history.

Washington State agreed to pay $16.95 million to 12 former residents of the J Bar D Boys Ranch who were sexually and physically abused as children while in state custody during the late 1970s and early 1980s, with the settlement reached mid-trial after four weeks of testimony.

Richard Adler and co-counsel Mike Nelson secured a $14.6 million settlement for Zackery Lystedt, a 13-year-old Tahoma Junior High football player left with catastrophic brain damage after coaches returned him to play following a concussion in October 2006.

Stritmatter Kessler Koehler Moore secured a $10 million settlement from the City of Seattle on behalf of more than 50 protesters who were struck by blast balls, tear gas, and other crowd-control weapons deployed by Seattle Police Department officers during the May and June 2020 George Floyd demonstrations.

Davis Law Group won a $10 million settlement for Carl Schwartz, a retired hospital administrator left paralyzed when his bicycle struck an unmarked metal post on King County's Green River Trail.

Lara Herrmann secured an $8.25 million mid-trial settlement for four victims of the 2015 Aurora Bridge duck-boat collision, including $7 million for the family of an 18-year-old student killed in the crash.

A Pierce County jury awarded $7.5 million to a man who was sexually abused by two counselors at YMCA Camp Seymour in Gig Harbor beginning when he was eight years old, nearly 50 years after the abuse occurred.

A Grays Harbor County jury awarded more than $3.8 million to an electronics technician and his wife after a co-worker triggered an explosion inside a live, high-voltage Variable Frequency Drive cabinet without warning, leaving the technician with one of the most severe cases of tinnitus and hyperacusis his expert witness had ever evaluated.

The estate of Charleena Lyles, a pregnant Black mother of four fatally shot by Seattle police during a mental health crisis in 2017, settled its wrongful-death civil rights claim for $3.5 million after a state appellate court reversed a prior dismissal and reinstated the case for trial.

A Grant County jury found that Tracy Nessl shot and killed Timothy McNamara on Christmas Day 2014 at his home in Belize and awarded his children $3.327 million, reported as one of the largest civil verdicts in Grant County history.

A King County jury awarded $1,482,200 to four University of Washington marching-band members who were injured when their charter bus rolled onto its side on icy Interstate 90 en route to the 2018 Apple Cup.

A King County Metro bus driver cut a corner short near the Renton Transit Center on March 10, 2021, rolled the rear tires over Jessica Chapel as she lay on the sidewalk, then canceled her own emergency call and left the scene, costing Chapel her leg.

Adler Giersch attorneys Richard Adler, Melissa Carter, and Arthur Leritz secured a settlement on behalf of the family of Kenney Bui, a 17-year-old Evergreen High School football player who died in October 2015 after being permitted to return to play following an earlier concussion, in a wrongful death case against Highline Public Schools and the physician who cleared him.

Seattle's Herrmann Law Group secured confidential Boeing settlements for families of victims killed in the October 2018 Lion Air 737 MAX crash, ultimately resolving cases for all 46 families the firm represented.

Charles Herrmann represented families of KAL Flight 007 victims through a decade of litigation that produced a jury finding of willful misconduct and a $50 million punitive award and, after the punitive damages were vacated on appeal, individual recoveries the firm reports exceeded $26 million in total.