Largest verdicts in Wyoming
15 independently-sourced personal-injury results from Wyoming firms, largest first. Each links to the full story — the firm, the attorneys, and the record behind the number.
A Philadelphia jury found that Walmart had denied nearly 188,000 Pennsylvania workers paid rest breaks and pay for off-the-clock hours, and the judgment entered on that verdict grew to roughly $188 million.
An Alameda County jury ordered Walmart to pay $172 million to roughly 116,000 California employees who were systematically denied legally required meal breaks, part of a 26-state wage campaign that Frank Azar helped launch.
After a seven-day bench trial in Sublette County, a Wyoming district court awarded APMTG Helium $35,199,276.79 against Denbury Onshore for failing to deliver helium under a long-term supply contract, and the Wyoming Supreme Court upheld the award in December 2020.
A federal jury in Wyoming awarded Amber Lompe $28.2 million after carbon monoxide from a faulty furnace caused permanent brain injury at her Casper apartment, a verdict that stood as one of the largest personal-injury awards in Wyoming history before the Tenth Circuit reduced the punitive component on due-process grounds.
A Black Hawk County jury returned a $13.6 million verdict for Jarvis Lee Boggs, paralyzed when a Waterloo police officer ran a red light at 61 mph without lights or siren and slammed into his car at 12:45 a.m. on New Year's Eve 2008.
A Las Animas County jury awarded Rhett Ridolfi $11.5 million after finding helmet maker Riddell negligent for failing to warn players about concussion danger, assigning 27 percent of the fault, roughly $3.1 million, to the company.
A Green River jury returned a $10.165 million verdict for a Rock Springs man whose legs were amputated after Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County and its physician failed to recognize and treat an acute vascular emergency.
A Wyoming jury awarded $22 million after coal miner Les Butts was left paraplegic when a boulder crushed his vehicle at Black Thunder Mine; the Wyoming Supreme Court affirmed a $9.46 million judgment against his supervisors in June 2008.
A Wyoming federal jury returned an $8 million verdict against SmithKline Beecham after finding that Paxil caused a Gillette man to kill three family members and himself within 48 hours of taking the drug.
R. Michael Shickich represented Worland nurse Debbie Evans in a federal qui tam action against Banner Health (formerly Lutheran Health Systems), yielding a $6.1 million federal settlement for fraudulent Medicare home health billing across Wyoming facilities.
A Sweetwater County jury returned a $5.19 million verdict for oilfield worker Blake Horr after a rubber well component, ejected by trapped pressure that Merit Energy's supervisor failed to relieve, shattered bones and severed nerves in his left hand and arm during a 2011 work-over operation in Bairoil, Wyoming.
A 24-year-old rider with a shattered femur and nearly $940,000 in medical bills won a $2.5 million verdict from a Denver jury in November 2022, a sum the firm reports fell to about $2,272,500 after a 20 percent comparative-fault reduction and interest.
Jim Fitzgerald won a $1.5 million jury verdict for the family of a construction worker killed when his 1966 Caterpillar 988 wheel loader rolled over without rollover protection, a judgment the Wyoming Supreme Court affirmed in full.
Jim and Michael Fitzgerald secured a Wyoming Supreme Court ruling that the state's governmental-immunity waiver covers ordinary negligence claims against state healthcare facilities, allowing a family's civil suit to proceed after their daughter was sexually assaulted by a hospital employee.
Robert A. Krause of The Spence Law Firm resolved the first wrongful death bellwether case in the Toyota unintended acceleration MDL on behalf of the families of Paul Van Alfen and Charlene Jones Lloyd, killed in a 2010 Utah crash, with Toyota settling confidentially days before a February 2013 trial date.