Workplace Injury verdicts & settlements
85 independently-sourced workplace injury results, largest first. Each links to the full story — the firm, the attorneys, and the record behind the number.
After nearly 30 years of litigation, Markovits Stock and DeMarco secured a $742 million-plus-interest settlement for approximately 23,000 Navistar retirees whose healthcare and life insurance benefits had been repeatedly reduced.
Sullivan Papain served as court-appointed co-liaison counsel in the World Trade Center Disaster Site Litigation, helping secure a settlement of more than $712 million for roughly 10,000 police officers, firefighters, and construction workers who developed serious respiratory and other illnesses after working in the toxic ruins of the World Trade Center.
A Fort Bend County jury awarded $222 million to the widow of Jesse Henson, a power-plant repairman scalded to death by superheated steam from a relief valve serviced by Team Industrial Services, a judgment a Texas appeals court later reversed before dismissing the case on the ground that it belonged in Kansas.
A Harris County jury awarded Laura Schneider and her three children $209.2 million after finding that Terra Energy Partners hid a known hantavirus danger that killed her husband, Karl.
A Cole County jury awarded $113.7 million to roughly 13,000 Missouri corrections officers who were required to clear security checkpoints and retrieve equipment before and after their paid shifts without receiving a minute of compensation for that time.
A Henderson County jury awarded $101 million to two masonry workers and one worker's wife after a 12-foot retaining wall, rebuilt under Hajoca's direction without an engineer or a permit, collapsed onto their crew.
Michael Maggiano of Maggiano, DiGirolamo & Lizzi served on the plaintiffs' trial team that secured a $101 million settlement for the families of four workers killed and dozens injured when the Tropicana Casino Resort's under-construction parking garage collapsed in Atlantic City in 2003, the largest construction-accident settlement in U.S. history at the time.
Four construction workers were killed and more than 30 injured when five floors of a parking garage under construction at the Tropicana Casino Resort in Atlantic City collapsed in October 2003, leading to what attorneys described as the largest construction-accident settlement in U.S. history at that time.
Robert Habush won a $99.25 million Milwaukee County jury verdict for the widows of three ironworkers killed when the Big Blue crane collapsed at Miller Park, though the $94 million punitive portion was later vacated and the case settled for about $30 million.
A Cook County jury awarded $95.5 million to a truck driver who lost both legs when improperly loaded carbon steel bundles fell from a crane during unloading, with a 10% comparative fault reduction bringing the net award to $85.9 million, the highest double-amputation verdict in Illinois history.
A federal jury in Portland awarded $85 million to 12 Oregon Army National Guard soldiers after finding that contractor KBR knowingly exposed them to a carcinogenic chemical at an Iraqi water treatment plant and then lied about the danger.
A Philadelphia jury awarded $75.6 million to Joseph Tuski, a highway construction flagman left quadriplegic when a drunk driver who had just served himself alcohol at the bar he managed struck him at 40 mph and fled the scene.
A Hillsborough County jury returned a $64.5 million verdict for Robert Matthews, a young construction worker left permanently disabled after an 11,000-pound prefabricated building shifted and collapsed on him at a Mosaic fertilizer company mine site.
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.
Wagner Jones Kopfman & Artenian secured a $54.6 million federal jury verdict on behalf of roughly 840 California Walmart truck drivers who went unpaid for mandatory pre- and post-trip vehicle inspections, controlled layovers, and rest breaks spanning more than a decade.
A Brooklyn jury found general contractor Mecca Contracting failed to protect Alan Moonsammy from a fall that left him paralyzed and awarded him $53.5 million.
A Kings County jury awarded about $48 million to a Polish immigrant carpenter who was rendered quadriplegic when a temporary wooden staircase gave way at a Brooklyn renovation site, finding the building owner and general contractor liable under New York Labor Law. The trial court later conditioned the pain and suffering portion on a reduction.
A Philadelphia jury awarded $46.5 million, including $38.5 million in punitive damages, against U.S. Security Associates after its guards fled rather than warn workers during the 2010 Kraft plant shooting that killed Tanya Wilson and LaTonya Brown. Kline & Specter's Shanin Specter, Dominic Guerrini, and Patrick Fitzgerald tried the case.
Wagner Jones Kopfman & Artenian secured a $43.5 million judgment in Fresno County Superior Court on behalf of roughly 700 North American Title escrow officers who were denied overtime pay for years, though the judgment was later reversed by the Court of Appeal in 2026.
One hundred twenty-nine former Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory workers, most of them over 50, shared a $37.25 million settlement after a series of jury trials established that the lab breached their employment contracts during a 2008 mass layoff that followed privatization of the facility.
A Harris County jury found ExxonMobil 100% responsible for a July 2019 explosion at its Baytown olefins plant caused by decades-ignored popcorn polymer buildup, awarding five injured workers $28,591,000 after three weeks of trial.
After a Chevron-USA tank-farm explosion at Honolulu Harbor burned two Shell Oil employees who later died of their injuries, a Hawaii Circuit Court jury awarded their families a combined $27.7 million in January 1983, then the largest civil verdict in state history.
A Vermont jury awarded $22.5 million, the second-largest verdict in state history at the time, to a Maine utility lineman who lost both legs below the knee after an ungrounded, defectively installed air-break switch at a Richford substation released a 5,000-degree electrical arc through his body.
A Harris County jury awarded about $21 million to Santiago Arias, a construction worker paralyzed from the chest down after falling roughly 20 feet at a Houston job site where his employer had provided no fall-protection equipment or safety training.
A Marion County jury awarded $20 million to a union carpenter left permanently disabled after Indianapolis Power and Light issued a faulty dig permit that failed to account for a live 4,160-volt electrical line at its Petersburg power plant.
A Clark County jury awarded $19,854,217 to Thomas Novick, a construction worker run over by a 14,000-pound rough-terrain forklift, in a case tried by John Shook of Shook & Stone.
When improperly installed scaffolding collapsed at a Bordentown, New Jersey construction site and injured four workers, John Ratkowitz of Ginarte Gonzalez and Winograd secured a $19.675 million multi-party settlement that awarded $15 million to Luis Yanza, who sustained a traumatic brain injury leaving him with permanent, severe cognitive deficits.
A class of 110 Cathay Pacific pilots secured a $16.65 million settlement in 2024, resolving California wage-and-hour claims over unpaid overtime, missed meal and rest periods, and reserve duty pay that the international airline had disputed for seven years.
Zehl & Associates recovered $16 million for a drillship floorhand injured in the moonpool of a Gulf of Mexico rig, ranked by TopVerdicts as the largest reported Jones Act maritime settlement in Texas for 2025.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court restored the full $15 million jury award for oilfield worker Todd Beason, who lost part of an arm when a crane boom fell on him, and held the state's $350,000 cap on noneconomic damages unconstitutional.
A union laborer fell about ten feet from a scaffold to the sidewalk after the owner and general contractor failed to give him a safe way to climb on and off it, and his back and heel injuries produced a $9.9 million settlement that VerdictSearch and the New York Law Journal ranked as the state's second-largest of 2014.
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 federal jury in the Southern District of New York awarded $8.67 million to Daniel Rivera, a construction worker who suffered permanent loss of use of his left arm and vision loss after an unsecured metal ladder at a Yonkers job site contacted a live electrical wire in August 2015.
A Denver jury awarded electrician Jon Valaer $8.4 million after contractor Q3 left three energized wires hidden inside a power pedestal that shocked him and left him with complex regional pain syndrome.
Jose Criollo, 46, fell from an unguarded scaffolding tower after airborne debris struck his eyes, sustaining a complete spinal cord injury at T12-T13 that left him permanently paraplegic; the case settled for $8.225 million against the general contractor and his employer combined.
Forest Horne secured a $7.5 million jury verdict for a retired CSX railroad worker whose decades of on-the-job asbestos exposure caused malignant mesothelioma, a verdict the North Carolina Court of Appeals unanimously upheld in 2006.
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.
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.
David H. Perecman of The Perecman Firm secured a $6 million settlement for a 45-year-old union operating engineer who slipped descending a tower crane's ladder, fell about 14 feet, and tore his left rotator cuff.
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 San Antonio jury found $4.675 million in total damages for a construction worker who suffered a serious injury when an HVAC unit that a crane rigging company had improperly rigged rolled onto him and struck him.
A Travis County jury found J.D. Abrams LP 100% negligent after construction logs fell on a worker passing beneath the Highways 183 and 35 interchange project, awarding $4,507,000 in damages.
A Texas appeals court affirmed a $4.5 million jury award for Jerry Thomas, an East Texas man who lost his hand at a sawmill in Rusk, holding that the owner never established an employment relationship and could not invoke the workers' compensation exclusive-remedy defense.
The Perecman Firm settled Cardona v. City of New York for $4.2 million after a 23-year-old worker fell from a scaffold, a result the New York Law Journal ranked seventh among 2018's top settlements.
After falling from a Sea Girt rooftop without a safety harness on May 4, 2017, and sustaining a complete cervical spinal cord injury that left him permanently quadriplegic, Roberto Carlos Bolanos settled his negligence claim against the general contractor for $4 million.
A 41-year-old ironworker left paraplegic when an elevated walkway overhang collapsed under him during a Raleigh mall demolition reached a $4 million confidential settlement with the general contractor.
A Memphis federal jury found that FTS USA and Unitek USA willfully cheated nearly 300 cable technicians out of overtime pay by systematically shaving their reported hours, and the Sixth Circuit later affirmed the verdict in a published opinion.
A Union County jury found general contractor Bonterra Builders grossly negligent after a 46-year-old construction worker was fatally crushed when a trench wall collapsed beneath him, returning a $3.85 million compensatory verdict for his widow.
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.
Jeffrey Friedman won a $3.5 million jury verdict for a Cleveland kettle operator who suffered third-degree burns to 23 percent of his body when a formic acid drum ruptured at an Ashland Chemical plant, a result described at the time as Ohio's largest employer intentional-tort verdict.
Steven B. Dorfman of The Perecman Firm secured a $3,325,000 settlement for a 54-year-old union cement worker who was seriously injured by a falling piece of plywood at a New York construction site.
A pavement-marking crew member fell from a moving trailer and struck his head on the road after a co-worker changed lanes abruptly, leaving him with no memory of the incident; Carter Mario resolved the combined workers' compensation and third-party auto claims for $3 million.
A Johnston County jury awarded $3 million to commercial truck driver Keave Bayes after a log fell on him at a logging deck, and John Paul Godwin of Hardison and Cochran, with co-counsel Sanford Thompson, secured the full verdict.
An Alameda County jury awarded $2.73 million to five test plaintiffs after finding that Lawrence Livermore National Security LLC violated its own inverse-seniority layoff policy when it cut more than 400 workers in 2008.
A New Jersey delivery worker received $2,225,000 in 2018 after a Ryder rental truck's lift gate collapsed mid-use, causing a fall that required multiple surgeries and left him with permanent physical restrictions.
A New Mexico jury awarded Jose Sandoval $2.2 million and found Baker Hughes 100% at fault after a pressurized packer tool exploded on a well site, driving a chain tong handle into Sandoval's leg and causing a severe femur fracture.
A construction worker fell through a failed metal grate inside the Central Railroad of NJ Terminal building at Liberty State Park in 2015, suffering bone fractures and permanent spinal injuries that John Ratkowitz of Ginarte Gonzalez & Winograd resolved for $2 million in 2024.
A Waterbury jury returned a $2 million verdict in November 2024 for construction laborer Keven Shepard, who was electrocuted when an excavator struck an Eversource power line marked nearly eight feet from its actual underground position.
A St. Louis jury found diacetyl distributor Elan Chemical Company liable for the debilitating lung disease suffered by two food-flavoring plant workers, returning a $1 million verdict for each man in March 2023.
A roofer left paralyzed from the waist down after falling on the job for an uninsured contractor settled his Virginia workers' compensation claim for a $2 million lump sum.
An Essex County jury awarded $1,800,000 to a plumber who fell from unguarded construction stairs while carrying a bathtub, finding Hutchgrove Enterprises liable as the de facto general contractor on the project.
A Black Hawk County jury awarded $1.8 million to Massachusetts sound engineer Frank Sgambellone after a State of Iowa forklift operator ran over his ankle during post-concert teardown at the UNI-Dome in February 2016.
Arthur Krawitz won a $1.775 million federal jury verdict for a 59-year-old ironworker who suffered spinal and wrist fractures after falling from open steel framing at a Delaware construction site where no fall protection had been provided. The jury added $500,000 on his wife's consortium claim, which the court later reduced on remittitur.
Thomas Scolaro and Justin Shapiro of Leesfield Scolaro secured a $1.575 million settlement for a Broward electrician who fell eight feet from an unsecured marina ladder while boarding an 83-foot yacht at River Bend Marina in Fort Lauderdale.
A Local 12A demolition worker crushed by collapsing scaffolding during the teardown at Queens' Aqueduct racetrack recovered $1.5 million in a mediated settlement, a result the New York Law Journal ranked among its top 2020 settlements.
A federal jury in Boise awarded Darel Hardenbrook $1,476,367 in back pay and front pay after finding that UPS fired him in violation of Idaho public policy, a verdict the Ninth Circuit affirmed in 2012.
Mastagni Holstedt secured a $1,376,827.22 settlement for 534 Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District employees after the district excluded holiday-in-lieu pay and health benefit cash-outs from workers' regular rate of pay when calculating FLSA overtime.
An oiler paralyzed below the neck after a fuel-supply pontoon vessel capsized in dangerous lock-gate currents on the Arkansas River near Pine Bluff received a $1 million jury award in 1969, reported at the time as the first such verdict in Arkansas federal courts.
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 Clark County jury found scaffolding contractor Safway Services 65 percent at fault after welder Charles Pamplin fell from an unsecured 11-foot scaffold at a Vancouver oil-rig fabrication yard.
Former Vallejo Police Captain John Whitney received a $900,000 settlement after the city fired him in retaliation for reporting that officers bent their badges to commemorate fatal shootings.
After seven years of around-the-clock caregiving at a Denver assisted living home, Aleta Ayo won a jury verdict and a court judgment of $830,737 against Meadow Vista Assisted Living for unpaid minimum wage and overtime.
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.
In the first and only published federal decision on the question, Mastagni Holstedt secured a ruling that Vallejo Police Department mounted unit officers were entitled to FLSA overtime for time spent feeding, grooming, transporting, and training their police horses at home, overturning a contrary Department of Labor opinion letter, with the city ultimately settling the claims for $659,880 through its Chapter 9 bankruptcy proceedings.
Marshall Nurenberg argued before the U.S. Supreme Court and won reinstatement of a Cuyahoga County jury's $625,000 verdict for a railroad worker who lost both legs after an insect bite on railroad property.
Mastagni Holstedt secured a $464,521 FLSA collective-action settlement for 85 City of Richmond firefighters after the federal court issued a published opinion rejecting a Department of Labor regulation that had permitted employers to exclude holiday-in-lieu pay from overtime calculations.
A federal jury awarded Hartford truck driver Michael Kennedy $436,900 after his employer fired him for refusing to haul loads that would have exceeded federal highway weight limits, in a Surface Transportation Assistance Act whistleblower case tried by Cicchiello & Cicchiello.
Peter TerVeer, a Library of Congress management analyst, was fired in 2012 after his supervisor learned he was gay through a Facebook page and subjected him to months of religious harassment; Thomas Simeone helped secure a Title VII sex-stereotyping ruling that survived a motion to dismiss, and the case ultimately settled for $235,000.
A Travis County jury sided with two commission-paid roofing salesmen who sued their employer for unpaid commissions, awarding them a combined $151,210.61 in damages plus attorney's fees and a share of future project proceeds; the Texas Third Court of Appeals later affirmed the judgment while modifying the attorney's fee award, and enforcement ultimately required a court-appointed receiver.
The Nevada Supreme Court reversed dismissal of personal injury and wrongful death claims brought by more than 100 Clark County Government Center employees and their families who developed cancer and other serious illnesses after working in a building erected on a former Union Pacific rail yard contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls.
The Nebraska Supreme Court upheld a permanent total disability award for a truck driver whose 2009 rollover on an Interstate 680 on-ramp in Omaha combined with pre-existing mental and cognitive impairments left him unable to compete in any regular branch of the labor market.
The Nebraska Supreme Court reversed a trial court ruling and held that when an employer denies a workers' compensation claim, the employee is not bound by the normal chain-of-referral rules for choosing physicians, and the employer must pay for all medical treatment later found to be compensable.
The Nebraska Court of Appeals affirmed a three-judge panel's ruling that Gloria Montoya, a Tyson Foods worker, was permanently and totally disabled as a result of injuries sustained on the job, rejecting the company's appeal in full.
The estate and daughter of Patricia Martin, a 36-year-old Domino Sugar employee who died after superheated slurry burned nearly half her body during a routine maintenance task, settled confidentially against the equipment contractor Maryland Mechanical Systems Inc. at the close of the plaintiff's case in July 2004.
Gwilliam Ivary filed suit in Alameda County on behalf of roughly 50 UCSF information technology employees who were laid off after the university contracted with India-based HCL Technologies, alleging the replacement workforce was dramatically younger and drawn from a single national origin.