Wrongful Death verdicts & settlements

Leavitt, Yamane and Soldner represented Maui wildfire survivors and victims' families in the $4.037 billion global settlement resolving approximately 450 lawsuits arising from the August 2023 Lahaina fire.

Judd Rosen served as court-appointed lead attorney for the wrongful death and non-owner victim class in the Champlain Towers South collapse litigation, helping secure a $1.2 billion global settlement for the families of the 98 people killed when the Surfside, Florida condominium tower fell on June 24, 2021.

Rachel Furst of Grossman Roth Yaffa Cohen served as co-chair of the plaintiffs' team that secured a $1.2 billion settlement for the families of 98 people killed when Champlain Towers South collapsed in Surfside, Florida -- the largest construction-disaster settlement in U.S. history.

Court-appointed co-chair lead counsel Ricardo Martinez-Cid of Podhurst Orseck helped secure over $1 billion for the families of 98 people killed in the June 2021 Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside, Florida, with final approval reached in under a year.

After Champlain Towers South collapsed in the middle of the night and killed 98 people, Curtis Miner of Colson Hicks Eidson served as court-appointed liaison counsel for the wrongful death and personal injury claimants, part of a leadership team that reached a roughly $1.02 billion class settlement.

Sol Weiss and Larry Coben of Anapol Weiss served as co-lead class counsel in the landmark NFL concussion multidistrict litigation, securing a settlement valued at nearly $1 billion for thousands of retired players diagnosed with serious neurological conditions.

A Dallas County jury found developer Greystar liable for the 2019 tower crane collapse that killed 29-year-old Kiersten Smith in her apartment, returning an $860 million verdict that Jason and Cory Itkin helped win for her family.

A Dallas jury awarded $860,012,006 to the family of Kiersten Smith, a 29-year-old woman killed when a construction crane collapsed onto her Old East Dallas apartment during a 2019 storm, finding developer Greystar fully liable for failing to allow the crane to weather vane.

Steven Marks and Kristina Infante of Podhurst Orseck secured a combined $844 million in wrongful-death judgments for 43 families of passengers killed when LaMia Flight 2933 crashed near Medellin, Colombia, in November 2016, killing 71 of the 77 people aboard.

Robert Eglet of Eglet Adams served as lead counsel for approximately 2,500 of the more than 4,400 plaintiffs who secured an $800 million settlement from MGM Resorts International over the October 1, 2017 Route 91 Harvest Festival mass shooting, one of the largest victim-compensation settlements in U.S. history.

A St. Louis County jury returned a $745 million verdict against nitrous oxide distributor United Brands and local head shop Coughing Cardinal after finding the companies conspired to sell Whip-It! canisters as an inhalant to a driver who passed out behind the wheel and fatally struck 25-year-old Marissa Politte outside her workplace.

A St. Louis jury awarded $462 million against trailer maker Wabash National after its defective rear-impact guard failed and allowed a car to slide beneath a trailer on I-55, killing Taron Tailor, 30, and Nicholas Perkins, 23, in 2019.

The family of Greg Sharrigan, killed when a gas leak ignited at his Maynard home in September 2021, sued Eversource for $450 million, alleging the utility detected the underground leak three years before the fatal explosion and never fixed it.

A Hernando County jury returned a $330 million verdict for Angela Stone after a drunk driver ran a stop sign and fatally struck a minivan carrying her 13-year-old daughter.

Jamie Lebovitz served on the federal MDL Plaintiff's Steering Committee for the Alaska Airlines Flight 261 disaster, representing 18 families in confidential individual settlements as part of a broader litigation that recovered more than $300 million for surviving relatives of the 88 people killed.

A Kaufman County jury awarded $296 million in compensatory damages against Koch Industries after a corroded, unmaintained butane pipeline exploded and killed two teenagers on August 24, 1996.

A 565-foot crawler crane toppled across a Tribeca street in 2016, killing a young mathematician; the case settled for $272.5 million.

After Amtrak Train 188 derailed in Philadelphia in May 2015, killing eight and injuring more than 200, Kline & Specter's Thomas R. Kline led the plaintiffs' negotiations that produced a $265 million settlement fund for the victims.

Robert Mongeluzzi helped secure a $265 million federal settlement on behalf of more than 125 claimants injured or killed when Amtrak Train 188 derailed at 106 mph on a Philadelphia curve in May 2015.

Steven Marks of Podhurst Orseck served as lead liaison counsel for the state-court plaintiffs and on the federal MDL Plaintiffs' Steering Committee, helping recover more than $262 million across insurance settlements for the families of the 110 people killed in the May 1996 crash.

When a demolition project at 22nd and Market Streets sent a four-story brick wall crashing through a Salvation Army thrift store in June 2013, seven people were killed; after nearly six months of civil trial, the defendants settled for $227 million, the largest personal-injury settlement in Pennsylvania history.

Sol Weiss served as co-lead counsel in a class action that secured $206 million in damages against two former Luzerne County judges who accepted $2.8 million in kickbacks to funnel hundreds of children into private juvenile detention facilities.

A Garfield County jury returned a $205 million verdict against Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park and ride manufacturer Soaring Eagle after finding that operators launched the Haunted Mine Drop with a six-year-old girl sitting on top of an unsecured seatbelt, overriding a warning alarm that should have stopped the ride.

A Suffolk County jury awarded $200 million in October 2023 -- the largest wrongful death award in Boston history -- against R.J. Reynolds for the lung cancer death of Rita Jones, who first received free Newport cigarettes as a teenager in 1964.

A Los Angeles County jury ordered Rebecca Grossman and former Major League pitcher Scott Erickson to pay $198.17 million for the deaths of two brothers, ages 11 and 8, struck in a marked crosswalk near their home.

A Los Angeles jury awarded $198.17 million to the Iskander family after two young brothers were struck and killed in a Westlake Village crosswalk, with Nick Movagar of M&Y Personal Injury Lawyers serving as co-counsel alongside Brian Panish.

A Santa Fe jury awarded $190 million to the families of two young people killed and three others seriously injured when an intoxicated View Homes Inc. executive crossed the center line on Highway 213 near Chaparral, New Mexico, on January 17, 2023.

A Bronx jury in February 2016 awarded $183 million to five FDNY firefighters and the families of those killed after the city was found 80% liable for removing personal safety ropes years before a 2005 Bronx tenement fire that forced six firefighters to jump from a fourth-floor window.

After a Westchester jury found Metro-North 71% at fault for the 2015 Valhalla grade-crossing disaster, a settlement exceeding $182 million resolved the claims of roughly 30 victims and their families.

A $160 million settlement -- the largest pre-verdict settlement in Pennsylvania court history -- resolved claims against U-Haul after an overfilled propane tank exploded at a North Philadelphia food truck, killing a mother and her teenage daughter and severely burning three others.

Stuart Grossman, Neal Roth, and Alex Arteaga-Gomez of Grossman Roth Yaffa Cohen represented families in the $127.5 million federal settlement arising from the FBI's failure to follow up on a tip warning that Nikolas Cruz was planning a school shooting five weeks before the February 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas massacre.

Kristina Infante and the Podhurst Orseck team secured a $127.5 million settlement from the federal government on behalf of 40 survivors and families of victims killed or wounded in the February 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, after demonstrating the FBI received advance warnings it failed to investigate.

Steven Campora of Dreyer Babich Buccola Wood Campora joined a coalition of firms that secured a $117 million settlement from 20 former PG&E officers and directors on behalf of the PG&E Fire Victim Trust, resolving breach-of-fiduciary-duty claims tied to the 2015 Butte Fire, 2017 North Bay fires, and 2018 Camp Fire.

Robert Clifford co-led the families of 68 people killed when American Eagle Flight 4184 iced over and crashed near Roselawn, Indiana, to a record $110 million settlement and an apology in open court.

An Allegheny County jury found West Penn Power negligent for the splice failure that dropped a live 7,200-volt line on Carrie Goretzka in her own backyard. The 2012 verdict reached $109 million. The utility later paid a reported $105 million to drop its appeal.

A San Diego jury held former county toxicologist Kristin Rossum and San Diego County responsible for the 2000 fentanyl killing of Greg de Villers, awarding his family $106 million in a wrongful death case tried by John Gomez.

A Baltimore City jury returned a $105 million wrongful-death verdict against off-duty Officer Rodney Price, who shot Tristin Little Sr. more than a dozen times with his service weapon in March 2001; the trial court later reduced the award to approximately $26.99 million.

An El Paso jury returned a $104 million verdict against Mesilla Valley Transportation after its driver fell asleep on I-40 in Oklahoma and crashed into a disabled truck, killing Orlando Robles, 38, who was sleeping in the sleeper berth.

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.

Power Rogers LLP recovered $100 million for Rev. Scott and Janet Willis after six of their nine children were killed when a mudflap assembly fell from a tractor-trailer on I-94 and ignited their minivan, a case that ultimately exposed an Illinois license-bribery scheme and sent Governor George Ryan to federal prison.

Stuart Grossman and Seth Miles won an $80 million federal default judgment for three Cuban nationals who were trafficked to Curaçao and compelled to work 16-hour shifts repairing ships for a fraction of a cent per hour under the Alien Tort Claims Act.

A Cook County jury awarded $79.85 million to the family of a 10-year-old girl killed when an unauthorized Chicago police pursuit ended in a multi-car crash, a verdict the parties later resolved for $62.5 million.

A Hillsborough County jury awarded $76.8 million in compensatory damages to the family of Dana Maria Rivera, a 36-year-old mother of four killed on February 28, 2025, when Nicholas Betancourt, released from a DUI arrest that same morning, crossed the center line on Gunn Highway in Odessa while impaired by cocaine and methamphetamine.

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 Sacramento jury ordered Ford to pay $73 million, including $50 million in punitive damages, after a tire tread separation caused a 15-passenger van to roll four times on Interstate 5, killing two Fair Oaks Presbyterian Church members and injuring two others.

A Dallas jury awarded $71.95 million to the widow and four children of electrician Hernan Murillo, killed at an Irving Frito-Lay warehouse in 2019 when a boom lift struck his elevated scissor lift.

A Miami-Dade jury found Eller Media liable for the 1998 electrocution of a 12-year-old boy at a bus shelter wired by unlicensed electricians and awarded $65.1 million.

Kevin Glasheen won a $60.5 million jury verdict in 1997, at the time the largest railroad accident verdict in Texas, after a Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight train killed a Friona family at a grade crossing in August 1993.

A Maricopa County jury awarded $58.5 million to families who donated deceased relatives' bodies believing they would be used for medical research, only to learn the Biological Resource Center of Arizona had dismembered and sold the remains to brokers worldwide.

A Massachusetts jury returned a $1 billion punitive verdict against Philip Morris in 2022 over the lung cancer death of Barbara Fontaine, a case handled in part by Rubenstein Law attorney Kevin Donovan; the punitive award was later reduced to $56 million, a figure the state Supreme Judicial Court upheld in April 2026.

James Schwebel represented 34 victims in a three-year lawsuit against engineering firm URS Corp, whose negligent inspection of the Minneapolis I-35W bridge preceded its August 2007 collapse, killing 13 people and injuring 145 others.

A federal jury in Utah awarded $52.2 million to the survivors of Rulon Allred, believed at the time to be the largest wrongful death verdict in state history, against the woman who confessed in print to killing him 15 years earlier.

An Albuquerque jury awarded $52 million in punitive damages against Professional Underwriters Liability Insurance Company after finding the insurer deliberately concealed notice of patient deaths and then refused to defend the physician it had covered.

Simon Law secured a $50 million wrongful death settlement after a young man with intellectual disabilities died when a national durable medical equipment supplier repeatedly ignored his mother's calls for a replacement breathing device.

John Coletti and co-counsel won a $49 million jury verdict on behalf of seven survivors of PacifiCorp's 2020 Labor Day wildfires, the fourth trial in the ongoing class litigation in Multnomah County Circuit Court.

Tom Neill of Gray, Ritter and Graham represented the family of one victim killed when a 3,000-pound pressurized steam vessel exploded at Loy-Lange Box Company in St. Louis's Soulard neighborhood, launching the tank into a neighboring laundry and killing four people total; consolidated wrongful-death, injury, and property suits settled for more than $47 million.

A Maricopa County jury awarded $45.5 million to the family of a 26-year-old woman with severe developmental disabilities who drowned while unsupervised at a Phoenix group home operated by Developmental Systems Inc.

A Queens jury awarded $41.5 million to the widow and four children of Steven Frosch, a 43-year-old New York City sanitation worker crushed between two street sweepers inside a Maspeth garage.

Jeb Butler and Matt Kahn, alongside co-counsel, secured a $40 million settlement against GDOT, a fence contractor, and a construction management firm after a guardrail left in disrepair for months on I-85 contributed to the death of Catrice Hunter.

A Cuyahoga County jury awarded $39 million to the widow of a highway paving inspector struck and killed on Interstate 271 after the paving contractor failed to follow its court-approved safety plan.

Stuart Grossman and Andrew Yaffa secured a $37.37 million wrongful-death verdict against Florida Power and Light after a utility crew deactivated a traffic signal without notifying police, causing a fatal multi-vehicle collision that killed a 12-year-old girl.

Chris Dolan represented the surviving Tran family and reached a $36 million settlement with Alameda County after an off-duty deputy who had failed his psychological exam shot Maria and Benison Tran in their Dublin home.

A Fulton County jury awarded $35 million to the family of Joshua Chang, a 21-year-old Yale student killed when his car struck a concrete planter on the shoulder of Batesville Road, finding the City of Milton 93% responsible for leaving a dangerous obstacle in the right-of-way.

Goldberg & Rosen attorneys Judd and Brett Rosen secured a $35 million jury verdict against drunk driver Thomas Cypress, whose blood-alcohol level was three times the legal limit when he killed retired Maryland couple Robert and Paulette Kirkpatrick on Tamiami Trail in 2009, producing what was at the time the largest damages award for surviving adult children in Florida history.

Chad Hemmat and co-counsel secured a $33 million wrongful death verdict for the mother of a 30-year-old Aurora engineer killed when a driver traveling nearly three times the posted speed limit ran a red light and T-boned his car at an I-225 interchange.

Mary Alexander served as lead plaintiffs' counsel representing 13 of the victim families in litigation against the City of Oakland over the December 2016 Ghost Ship warehouse fire, which killed 36 people, securing a $32.7 million settlement covering 32 families and a survivor.

A Sacramento County jury awarded $32.16 million to the two young children of Juan Carlos Rodriguez after a City of Sacramento police detective drifted across the fog line on Interstate 5 and struck Rodriguez and his brother, killing both men.

A Richland County jury unanimously awarded $32 million, including $10 million in punitive damages against Kraft Heinz, after finding that secondhand asbestos fibers carried home on work clothes caused Kathy Weist's fatal mesothelioma diagnosis.

A Denver jury awarded $31.8 million to the family of an 82-year-old woman killed and other residents injured when a punctured Xcel Energy gas line exploded at Heather Gardens retirement community in 2018, assigning Xcel 12% of the fault.

A Hamilton County jury returned a verdict of nearly $28 million against Utilimap Corp. after the firm's inspectors skipped a rotted utility pole that collapsed and killed Duke Energy lineman Keith Jester in 2014.

A Suffolk County jury awarded $28 million, including $25 million in punitive damages, after Father's Huddle Cafe in Boston served alcohol to underage patrons who attacked Thomas Christopher, 23, chasing him into traffic where he was struck and killed; the Massachusetts Appeals Court affirmed the verdict against the bar on January 28, 2003.

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.

After a Chicago police pursuit that broke department policy killed Stacy Vaughn-Harrell and an earlier $10.2 million jury verdict was thrown out on appeal, the City Council approved a $27 million settlement for her family.

A Franklin County jury awarded $27 million to the estate of Gregory Coleman Jr., a 37-year-old bartender beaten to death by security workers outside the Julep bar in Columbus's Short North, finding the bar's ownership 80 percent at fault for negligent hiring and supervision.

Price Benowitz, with co-counsel Ben Crump, filed a $25 million wrongful death suit for the father of Rolin Hill, who died in 2024 after Virginia Beach jail deputies restrained and beat him during a mental health crisis.

A federal jury in St. Louis awarded $25 million to the parents of a two-year-old girl who drowned after climbing into a Bestway above-ground pool using an exterior nylon strap the manufacturer had built into the design.

A Dallas County jury awarded $25 million to the mother of Jerry Brown Jr., a Dallas Cowboys practice-squad player killed when his teammate Josh Brent drove drunk at more than twice the legal limit, after finding that Beamers nightclub had over-served Brent alcohol before the fatal crash.

A Lake County jury awarded $25 million to Patricia Amsden after her husband Phillip was struck and killed on Interstate 65 by a driver with a blood-alcohol level three times the legal limit, holding the driver, his employer, and two bars that served him accountable.

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 $24 million settlement obtained for the family of a 33-year-old nurse killed when a commercial truck crossed the center line at highway speed is the largest reported wrongful death recovery in Virginia history, doubling the previous record.

A Broward County jury awarded $24 million to the widower of Alana DeMella, a seven-months-pregnant hotel guest killed when a drunk driver crashed into a pool cabana at the Riverside Hotel in Fort Lauderdale in 2012.

A six-week Anoka County trial ended with a $24 million jury verdict against BNSF Railway after four young people died at a malfunctioning Ferry Street grade crossing in September 2003.

Stanislaus County agreed to pay $22.5 million to settle a federal civil rights suit brought by criminal defense attorney Frank Carson's estate and seven co-plaintiffs who were acquitted after a years-long murder conspiracy prosecution. The firm served as co-lead trial counsel, representing four of the eight plaintiffs and negotiating roughly $12 million of the total; Morrison & Foerster represented the other four.

A Cook County jury awarded $21.5 million, a state record for a drowning, after a six-year-old boy who could not swim was left unsupervised in a Bridgeview Park District camp pool, and an appellate court later affirmed the full award.

A Contra Costa County jury returned a $21.4 million verdict against Chevron Corp. in March 2019 for the benzene-exposure deaths of brothers Gary and Randy Eaves, who spent years spraying a benzene-based solvent onto tires at an Arkansas plant without respirators, protective clothing, or safety warnings.

A Multnomah County jury found a property management company and a private security firm liable after one of the firm's unlicensed armed guards shot and killed Freddy Nelson Jr. in a Lowe's parking lot, returning $21.25 million to his family.

A Boston jury awarded $21 million to the widow of a Lynn man who died of lung cancer after taking up smoking at 13, when a salesman handed him a free pack of Marlboros, with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court affirming the verdict in full in 2021.

Joseph Bruno served as Liaison Counsel in the federal class action that secured a $20.2 million settlement from the Orleans, East Jefferson, and Lake Borgne Basin levee districts for negligent levee maintenance that contributed to catastrophic flooding during Hurricane Katrina.

William H. Murphy Jr. secured a $20 million settlement for the family of William Howard Green, a 43-year-old father shot six times by a Prince George's County officer while handcuffed in the front seat of a patrol car -- at the time the largest such settlement ever paid by a Maryland local government.

A Los Angeles jury awarded $18 million after finding malice when a driver struck two pedestrians in a Calabasas crosswalk, killing the mother, and then moved the victims and gave misleading statements to police to alter the appearance of the scene.

A Pulaski County circuit judge entered a $17.6 million default judgment against a former Little Rock 911 dispatcher who failed to relay a drowning-in-progress call to police and fire water rescue, resulting in the deaths of a mother and her young son over the following two years.

A federal jury awarded $17 million to the surviving relatives of a Canadian Army private, his wife, and their infant son killed when an XPO Express 18-wheeler plowed into slowed construction-zone traffic on Interstate 95 near Florence, South Carolina.

A Sacramento jury awarded $16,577,118 to the family of Jennifer Strange, a 28-year-old mother of three who died of water intoxication after competing in KDND radio's 'Hold Your Wee for a Wii' contest -- at the time the largest wrongful-death verdict in Sacramento County.

After management at a Rogers Park senior building kept the heat running through a May 2022 heat wave, three elderly residents died of heat exposure; their families settled for $16 million against the building's owner and property manager.

A San Diego jury awarded $15,771,234 to the wife and three children of a bicyclist killed on El Camino Real in Carlsbad by a driver who fell asleep at the wheel after a night shift, in what was reported as the largest net wrongful death verdict in San Diego County history.

A San Diego jury awarded $15.5 million after Hyatt hotel staff extended a diabetic guest's reservation without verifying her wellbeing, leaving Cindy Gonzalez uncontacted for nearly a day while she lay comatose between the beds in her room.

A Clark County jury awarded $15 million to the wife and son of Eric Echevarria, 52, killed in December 2020 when Zaon Collins drove 88 mph through a 35-mph zone in Las Vegas.

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.

A Charlottesville jury awarded $15 million to the mother and sister of University of Virginia lacrosse player Yeardley Love after a 2022 civil trial against the man convicted of her 2010 murder.

A Charlottesville jury awarded $15 million in May 2022 to the mother and sister of Yeardley Love, a University of Virginia lacrosse player killed by her former boyfriend in 2010, more than a decade after his criminal conviction.

A $15 million civil judgment was entered against the owner of five pit bulls that mauled 60-year-old Edgar Brown to death on SW 38th Street in Oklahoma City in October 2015, with Noble McIntyre representing the Brown family.

A Clark County jury awarded $15 million after Harvey Chernikoff, an intellectually disabled paratransit rider, choked to death on a First Transit bus whose driver ignored monitoring rules and was never trained in CPR, a verdict the Nevada Supreme Court later affirmed in full.

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.

The University of the Cumberlands paid $14.1 million to the family of Grant Brace, a 20-year-old wrestler who died of exertional heatstroke in August 2020 after coaches refused him water during a grueling punishment practice and failed to summon medical help.

A DeKalb County jury awarded $14 million for the wrongful death of a six-year-old boy killed when the car he was riding in ran a stop sign into a pickup, with Montlick's Bill Parker representing the boy's father.

Parker and McConkie secured a $13.5 million settlement for the family of Lauren McCluskey, a University of Utah track athlete murdered on campus after police failed to act on her repeated stalking reports.

The family of a three-year-old girl who died of E. coli traced to contaminated beef at a South Milwaukee Sizzler reached a $13.5 million settlement, among the largest food-borne-illness recoveries in the country.

After a 99-day bench trial, San Diego Superior Court Judge Kevin A. Enright awarded approximately $12.775 million in compensatory and punitive damages to 22 women who were deceived into appearing in online pornographic videos produced by GirlsDoPorn, with the court also ordering payment of $8 million in attorneys' fees.

A Harris County probate jury found Raymond James and Associates liable for a 2019 fuel-starvation crash near Kerrville that killed six people, awarding $12.1 million to the families of three passengers after five hours of deliberation.

A 23-year-old grain truck driver was killed when an electrical arc jumped from an overhead high-voltage power line to the portable auger he was using at a commercial silo, and his family recovered $12 million from the power company and property owner.

Behzad "Al" Abedi was killed when stacked marble slabs fell on him at a Charlotte stone warehouse in 2019, and DeMayo Law Offices resolved his family's premises- and products-liability claims for $12 million.

Louisville Metro Government paid $12 million to the family of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old licensed EMT shot by LMPD officers during a no-knock drug raid on March 13, 2020, the largest police-misconduct settlement in the city's history.

A jury awarded $11.7 million to the family of William Tindall, killed on Marsh Creek Road while stopping to help another motorist during a county road resurfacing project that had already claimed a life five days earlier.

After United States Aircraft Insurance Group sat on a $100,000 voluntary-settlement offer for more than a year following a fatal 2013 Kansas plane crash, a Riley County judge held the insurer responsible for the entire $11.5 million wrongful-death judgment entered against its insured.

A highway maintenance contractor whose crew illegally blocked both lanes of Georgia Highway 4 paid $11 million after a jackknifed log truck crushed the vehicle of a married couple, killing the husband and severely injuring his wife.

A Bernalillo County jury returned an $11 million verdict, including $6 million in punitive damages, for the wrongful death estate of an 88-year-old woman who developed deep tissue heel wounds during a short rehabilitation stay at a skilled nursing facility and died roughly two years later.

A Manatee County jury returned an $11 million verdict, including more than $9.8 million in punitive damages, against road-construction subcontractor L.E. Myers Co. after the firm proved it failed to close a required traffic lane, leading to a fatal collision in the work zone.

A commercial truck driver crossed the center line on a Buchanan County road in July 2022, killing two teenagers and seriously injuring a third young passenger; five plaintiff families reached a $10.5 million global settlement in January 2024.

A Cook County jury held the City of Chicago liable for the 2018 death of Tuong Lam, 61, who bled to death over about 17 minutes after a driver fleeing an unauthorized high-speed police pursuit struck his car.

Cincinnati's Metro transit agency paid $10 million to the estate of Beverly Kinney, an 87-year-old struck and killed in a marked crosswalk by a bus driver with a suspended license, and agreed to overhaul its driver training.

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.

The City and County of Honolulu agreed in October 2021 to pay $10 million to settle a wrongful-death claim brought by the family of cardiothoracic anesthesiologist William Travis Lau, who was struck and killed on a Kakaako sidewalk when a drunk driver fleeing an HPD high-speed pursuit veered off Ala Moana Boulevard in January 2019.

A Sacramento family received a then-record $9.75 million civil settlement after a Sacramento police officer's department vehicle rear-ended their car at 63 mph on Interstate 80, fatally injuring 9-month-old Raiden Saechao.

Ricci Law Firm and co-counsel recovered $9.5 million for the family of an 84-year-old woman killed when a driver fleeing police ran a stop sign, with the case built on the negligent entrustment of the car to a man whose license was suspended over repeat DWI charges.

Adamson Ahdoot LLP secured a $9 million settlement for the family of a 15-year-old Jurupa Valley student who died three days after collapsing during a 104-degree football practice, after coaches failed to provide water, shade, or emergency care.

Three people died and a child was seriously injured when a 20-year-old drove the wrong way on Interstate 85 after a night of underage drinking supplied by bars and a fraternity; Maginnis Howard's Shawn Howard helped secure an $8.62 million settlement against 18 of the 19 defendants one month before trial.

A Gwinnett County jury awarded $8.6 million to the mother of stuntman John Bernecker, who died in July 2017 after falling 22 feet from a balcony on a 'Walking Dead' set when he missed his landing pad by inches; the Georgia Court of Appeals later reversed the verdict on the ground that the Workers' Compensation Act barred the family's civil claims.

A San Diego County jury found the Metropolitan Transit System 40 percent at fault for the death of Anthony McGaff, who was held in a chokehold for more than eight minutes aboard a moving city bus.

After multiple York County bars served alcohol to a teenager who then killed his 22-year-old passenger in a crash, Kenneth Berger secured an $8.35 million wrongful death settlement on behalf of the victim's family.

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.

Cedar Rapids' insurer paid $8 million to Jerime Mitchell, a quadriplegic man shot by Officer Lucas Jones during a 2016 traffic stop, in what attorneys described as the largest police-misconduct settlement in Iowa history.

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.

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.

Stuart Grossman secured a $7.5 million settlement plus $1,000 per day in lifetime care costs for Antonio Edwards, a 24-year-old left permanently brain-damaged after a Miami officer applied a chokehold and slammed him into the pavement during a 1992 arrest, prompting the city to ban the technique.

A 21-year-old driver who was overserved at two Spartanburg bars struck and killed two cousins at over 70 mph, leading to a $7.36 million wrongful death settlement paid by the bars and the driver.

A Hartford jury returned a $7.25 million verdict for the estate of Daniel DiNardi, a Connecticut DOT supervisor fatally struck by a tractor-trailer while working on the shoulder of Route 8 northbound near Waterbury.

Luna County agreed to a $7 million settlement after a sheriff's deputy driving more than 130 mph T-boned a family's car on a rural New Mexico highway, killing a 14-month-old boy and severely injuring his mother.

Jamie Lebovitz threatened to take Boeing to trial in the Flight 427 wrongful-death MDL and, on the scheduled trial date, accepted a settlement of approximately $7 million for his client's family, a figure reported as far above what most other victims' families received.

An Orange County jury awarded $6.8 million to Mary Sheffield, widow of Valton Sheffield, who died of lung cancer decades after becoming addicted to R.J. Reynolds cigarettes as a teenager.

A San Luis Obispo County jury awarded $6,709,300 to the family of Tricia Rittger, a KSBY sales manager who was struck and killed by an SUV while crossing Shell Beach Road to reach The Cliffs Resort, after the firm proved the resort had violated its own parking policy and a city-issued operating permit.

Cooper Elliott won a $6.525 million judgment against the former Pi Kappa Alpha president whose chapter hazed Bowling Green State University student Stone Foltz to death in 2021.

A Cumberland County jury awarded $6.5 million to the family of Peter Smith, a 25-year-old who died of Lyme carditis in July 2017 after a Mercy Hospital physician twice failed to diagnose his Lyme disease despite a textbook presentation of symptoms.

RisCassi and Davis attorneys secured a $6.5 million settlement for students hurt when a school bus plunged down a 20-foot I-84 embankment, killing a 16-year-old Rocky Hill boy on his way to a robotics competition.

A federal jury held maintenance contractor Shaw Group liable under Arkansas law after U.S. Army Private Van Ryan Marcum was fatally electrocuted by an abandoned, improperly wired latrine at Fort Benning, returning a $6.5 million verdict affirmed by the Eighth Circuit.

A Sacramento jury awarded $6,471,242 to the widow of a 33-year-old sheriff's deputy killed while riding his motorcycle through a poorly configured highway construction zone managed by the State of California and Granite Construction, the largest wrongful-death verdict in Sacramento County at the time.

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.

Ross Feller Casey secured a $6.25 million settlement for Terrance Lewis, a Philadelphia man who spent more than 21 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of a 1996 West Philadelphia murder based on withheld exculpatory evidence.

A Miami-Dade jury awarded $6 million to the widow of Oscar Cabrera, a construction worker killed in February 2017 when a remotely operated Metromover train struck a boom lift near the Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. station while he was working on the Brightline terminal project.

A Dallas County jury returned a $6 million wrongful-death verdict for the family of Paula Hahn, one of two women killed when a charter bus carrying Choctaw Casino passengers rolled over in Irving, Texas, in April 2013.

A Baltimore City jury returned a $5.87 million wrongful-death verdict against the University of Maryland Medical System after hospital staff failed to recognize and treat cardiac tamponade in a heart-surgery patient, delaying specialist intervention for more than an hour while she deteriorated.

Jackson County, Indiana agreed to pay $5.6 million to the family of Ta'Neasha Chappell, a 23-year-old Louisville mother who died in jail custody in July 2021 after nearly 20 hours of ignored medical pleas.

A Cook County jury awarded $5.5 million to the family of Sandy Brooks, an 85-year-old dialysis patient who died after a Richton Park nursing home sent him to none of his scheduled treatments, tying the largest nursing home neglect verdict in county history.

New Mexico's child welfare agency agreed to a $5.5 million federal civil rights settlement after caseworkers placed an eight-year-old girl with her father, who then beat her to death, despite a documented history of abuse allegations against him.

A Cook County jury awarded $5.5 million to the family of Bettye Patterson, 80, who struggled to breathe for about 20 minutes after a power outage shut off her supplemental oxygen at a Palos Heights nursing home.

An Androscoggin County jury awarded Marielle Bischoff-Wurstle $5.5 million after Affordable Cremation Solution in Lewiston, Maine, left her father's remains unrefrigerated in an overheated basement for more than two weeks in summer 2021.

An Albuquerque federal jury awarded $5.4 million to the widow of Martin Leon, a California man who died after a sleep-deprived FedEx Ground contractor driver rear-ended a tractor-trailer on Interstate 40 near Grants, New Mexico.

A federal jury in Raleigh awarded $5.2 million for three residents who died at the Blue Ridge Health Care Center after its operators cut staffing and supplies, an award later limited to about $3 million once North Carolina's punitive cap was applied.

A Johnston County jury awarded $5.1 million to the family of Joan Drake, killed when a driver going 98 mph struck her car as she turned into a Clayton Walmart, after Farrin attorneys Coleman Cowan and Donald Clack tried the case without putting on a single medical bill.

A North Carolina nursing home placed an 89-year-old man in a room with a resident it knew to be violent, and within three days the roommate beat him to death.

The University of Utah agreed to pay $5 million to the parents of Zhifan Dong, a 19-year-old international student killed by her boyfriend at a Salt Lake City hotel in February 2022, after an internal review confirmed university staff missed repeated warning signs that she was in danger.

A Miami-Dade jury awarded $5 million in January 2023 to the family of Robert Hoffman, who died of lung cancer at 46 after smoking Marlboro cigarettes as a teenager and quitting before age 30, with Philip Morris held 60 percent at fault.

Three families whose relative died when a Two Men and a Truck driver ran a red light in Weldon Spring, Missouri recovered $5 million from the franchise owner, J&C Enterprises Inc., in a wrongful death settlement reached in August 2022.

Bexar County agreed to pay $5 million to resolve a federal civil-rights suit after sheriff's deputies fatally shot 6-year-old Kameron Prescott inside his family's home during a 2017 manhunt, with Tom Crosley representing the boy's father.

Joye Law Firm recovered $5 million for the estate of a Goodwill custodian killed when a terminal tractor with broken headlights made an illegal U-turn and struck her in a Joint Base Charleston parking lot.

BSR Ventures, doing business as Advanced Heating and Cooling, agreed to a $5 million judgment after its employee, who had seven prior DUI convictions including two felonies, crossed the center line on U.S. 93 and killed Cheryl Miller in a head-on crash.

Jimmy Fasig won a $5 million jury verdict for the father of a woman killed in a crash near a Flying J travel center, but the award was wiped out on appeal after the father died while post-trial motions were still pending.

A Hardee County jury awarded $5 million to the parents of Michael Lieux, a former Marine with a brain injury who died of positional asphyxia after FINR staff pinned him face-down using a technique the facility called 'therapeutic containment.'

New Mexico settled for $4.9 million after CYFD received multiple abuse referrals for a four-year-old boy, documented injuries consistent with serious harm at an urgent care visit, and still returned him to the home where he was beaten to death 52 days later.

A pipefitter was struck and killed by an overhead crane while converting a Southeast Virginia paper plant, and his family's wrongful-death claim against the plant owner and two contractors settled for $4.7 million before trial.

CampGroup LLC paid $4.5 million to settle the wrongful death of a 15-year-old Buffalo Grove boy who drowned during an unsupervised nighttime lake swim at Greenwoods Camp for Boys in Michigan, a result the Jury Verdict Reporter ranked as Illinois's second-highest settlement for the drowning death of a minor.

A North Carolina woman died after a series of falls during a roughly two-month nursing home stay, and her family settled wrongful-death claims against the facility's corporate operators for $4.25 million.

Following a $24 million wrongful-death jury verdict, Anoka County District Court Judge Ellen Maas imposed more than $4.2 million in additional sanctions against BNSF Railway for destroying evidence, fabricating records, and obstructing the investigation of a crash that killed four young people.

A Norfolk jury awarded $4,007,478 after a 14-year-old riding a scooter through a marked crosswalk was struck and killed by a driver who later admitted liability, leaving the trial focused solely on damages.

A 73-year-old man admitted to a North Carolina nursing home for ankle-fracture rehabilitation developed untreated Stage 4 pressure ulcers within 27 days and died, and Henson Fuerst resolved the wrongful-death claim for $4 million.

A federal jury returned a $4 million verdict against Saguache County Jail officials after finding that staff ignored repeated suicidal statements made by 27-year-old Jackson Maes before his death in November 2019.

Benjamin Wagner and Molly Lavin of Habush Habush & Rottier won a $4 million punitive damages verdict in Kenosha County after Helen Ende, an 89-year-old dementia patient, wandered out of a short-staffed assisted living facility and died of hypothermia.

A St. Johns County jury awarded Kelli Bynum $4 million for the death of her husband, triathlete Jared Bynum, who was struck and killed by an SUV while training on Nocatee Parkway in 2012.

A federal jury awarded $3,858,548, including $2 million in punitive damages, after finding Eastwyck Village apartment complex liable for the death of tenant Tijuana Frazier, who was struck by a stray bullet that penetrated her bedroom wall while she slept.

Michael Jainchill of RisCassi & Davis secured a $3.8 million settlement for the adult children of Janet Pulver, a 66-year-old Avon grandmother killed when a speeding driver crossed the center line and struck her car head-on in Farmington, Connecticut.

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 Johnston County jury awarded $3.41 million to the estate of Clinton Massengill, a 23-year-old from Four Oaks who died nine days after being struck without warning at Club Riptide in Selma, falling and hitting his head on the concrete floor.

A mother and her two toddler daughters, each diagnosed with PTSD after surviving the American Airlines Flight 1420 runway crash in Little Rock, won a $3.35 million jury verdict that the Eighth Circuit affirmed in full.

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.

Mike Rafi secured a $3.1 million settlement for the estate of Cynthia Louise Feijoo, a 61-year-old Albany, Georgia woman who died after her wheelchair was not properly secured in a medical transport van, with discovery exposing the transport company's false claim that she had been properly restrained.

A federal court found the U.S. government liable for the 1984 murder of FBI informant John McIntyre after agent John Connolly disclosed his identity to Winter Hill Gang leaders Whitey Bulger and Stephen Flemmi, and the First Circuit affirmed the $3.1 million award in 2008.

A commercial garbage truck driver ran a red light and struck a Charlotte resident's vehicle on November 30, 2022, causing fatal blunt force trauma; the estate recovered $3 million at the combined policy limits of the driver and waste company.

A Cook County jury awarded $3 million to the family of Norma Darnell, 76, who died of pneumonia after a nurse at Alden Courts of Waterford in Aurora gave her about ten times her prescribed hydromorphone dose.

Bryan Dawson secured a $3 million settlement for the estate of Michael Barton, a mentally ill Oregon State Penitentiary inmate whose untreated influenza escalated to sepsis and death in February 2018, marking the largest settlement in Oregon Department of Corrections history.

A commercial truck driver ran a stop sign on a North Carolina country road and killed a 60-year-old man, and his family settled their confidential wrongful-death claim for $3 million, a result that tied for 25th among the state's top verdicts and settlements of 2019.

A federal jury awarded $2.95 million to the estate of David Allan Woods, a 50-year-old South Carolina detainee who died of gastrointestinal bleeding in 2010 after jail officers repeatedly ignored his deteriorating condition.

Bowling Green State University agreed to pay $2.9 million to the family of Stone Foltz, a 20-year-old fraternity pledge who died after being made to drink a full liter of bourbon during an initiation, in what the family's attorneys called the largest hazing settlement paid by an Ohio public university.

Keith V. Trantolo of Trantolo & Trantolo secured a $2.9 million wrongful death settlement in a motor vehicle fatality case, placing it seventh on TopVerdict's list of the top 20 Connecticut settlements of 2017.

After State Farm denied uninsured-motorist coverage and defended the driver who caused the crash, a Memphis jury held him 85 percent at fault for the collision that killed Kathryn Sadowski and injured her 90-year-old husband, Emil.

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.

A Prince George's County jury found an undercover officer liable for fatally shooting Prince Jones, an unarmed Howard University student stopped in a case of mistaken identity, and awarded his young daughter $2.5 million.

A San Diego jury found the Porsche Turbo 930 defective not from a single mechanical failure but because the car's power and handling characteristics made it inherently too dangerous for ordinary drivers, awarding $2.5 million to the family of Donald Fresh in what was the first U.S. verdict of its kind against an automaker.

Thirteen years after Minneapolis florist Robert Nachtsheim was shot and killed in an officially unsolved homicide, a Hennepin County jury found businessman Norman Wartnick civilly liable and awarded his widow $2,350,000 in compensatory and punitive damages, a verdict the Minnesota Court of Appeals affirmed in 1987.

Dakota County paid $2.25 million to settle a wrongful death suit brought by Tory Hart after county child protection workers recommended reuniting his six-year-old son with the mother, who fatally shot the child ten days after a court terminated its jurisdiction.

A Denver jury awarded $2.25 million against a drunk driver who pulled into the path of motorcyclist Abdul Alhilo and then fled the scene, and the Colorado Court of Appeals later affirmed the verdict, including its exemplary damages.

A 60-year-old woman stopped for a red light on Glenwood Avenue in Raleigh died three days after a speeding driver rear-ended her, and her family resolved the wrongful-death claim for $2 million.

Sutliff and Stout won a $1.94 million wrongful death verdict against ExxonMobil for the family of Alfredo Pagayon, a Harris County man who died after an ExxonMobil cashier attacked him at a Houston convenience store; the Texas Supreme Court reversed the judgment in 2017, ruling that the employer owed no supervisory duty under the circumstances.

A Baltimore County jury awarded $1.75 million to the family of Albert 'Tom' Rochfort Jr., a retired science teacher who died days after an emergency physician dismissed his chest pain as a muscle strain instead of ordering the CT scan that would have caught an early aortic dissection.

Salt Lake County paid $1.5 million to the mother of a 25-year-old woman who died of methamphetamine toxicity at the county jail after nursing staff dismissed her overdose symptoms as a panic attack and left her unmonitored in a prone position.

Carr & Carr attorney Laurie Koller secured a $1.5 million settlement for an Oklahoma family after a Woodshed liquor store sold vodka to their 17-year-old son without checking his ID, and he died in a crash on the morning of his junior prom.

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.

Utah's Department of Transportation paid $1.45 million to resolve wrongful-death and injury claims brought by survivors and families of four Chinese tourists killed when a tour bus rolled over on a freshly resurfaced section of State Road 12 near Bryce Canyon in September 2019.

Doris Cheng of Walkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger won a $1.4 million Los Angeles County verdict for Maria Renteria after her son, bicyclist Luis Alvarez, Jr., was struck and killed by an LACMTA Metro bus.

A federal judge awarded $1,380,414.82 to the widow of Roy Palmer, a 69-year-old Army veteran who died at the Togus VA Medical Center in Augusta, Maine after staff co-administered an opioid and a benzodiazepine that carry an FDA black-box warning against simultaneous use.

A Montgomery County jury returned a $1.3 million gross verdict, reduced to approximately $1.27 million after Maryland statutory caps, for the parents of Ruben Bastien, a 23-year-old Army Reservist who died after an ER physician at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring failed to act on an abnormal EKG and sent him home without cardiology consultation.

A $1.25 million settlement resolved a wrongful-death claim against the City of Winston-Salem after a probationary city landfill operator, distracted by personal phone calls, backed a bulldozer into Waste Management driver Thomas Thompson and killed him.

A woman walking home from her job was struck and killed by a tractor-trailer; Auger and Auger attorneys secured a $1.25 million settlement after mediation failed and the parties disputed the extent of her suffering before death.

Louisville Metro Government paid $1.25 million to the family of Darnell Wicker, a 57-year-old man shot 14 times by LMPD officers during a 2016 domestic-disturbance call in which he was holding a tree saw.

San Diego County paid $1 million to the family of Ivan Ortiz, a 26-year-old with schizophrenia who died by suicide in Central Jail the day after staff documented a prior attempt and failed to remove the item he used to take his life.

Brown & Crouppen attorney Brett Williams resolved a wrongful death claim for $1 million after a Kansas City nursing home resident on a doctor-ordered soft diet choked on a piece of fruit and died.

A woman asleep in her bed died when an intoxicated driver crashed through her home wall; Maginnis Howard secured a $975,000 settlement through dram shop claims against two bars that served the driver while he was visibly impaired.

Christopher DiGirolamo secured a $900,000 settlement for the family of a 26-year-old college student who was struck and killed by a car while crossing at a marked crosswalk in New Jersey.

A Duval County jury returned a $1.83 million verdict against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco in the wrongful-death claim of Kenneth Hiott, a longtime smoker who died of lung cancer; the trial court reduced the award to $730,000 based on comparative fault, and Florida's First District Court of Appeal affirmed in January 2014.

The mother of M. Shane Satterfield, 38, recovered $640,000 from Decatur County's liability insurer after he died of untreated alcohol withdrawal while serving a drunk-driving sentence at the county jail.

A Milwaukee County jury found a day-care van driver 85 percent at fault for fatally running over a 7-year-old boy on his way to school, awarding his family $633,682 in damages.

AJ Law, PLC secured a $575,000 settlement from the City of Peoria after the Arizona Supreme Court reversed dismissal of a wrongful death claim brought by the mother of a 12-year-old boy killed at an uncontrolled intersection in 2018.

Davis Kelin Law Firm secured a $439,000 settlement for the widow of Scott Pierce, killed by serial killer Clifton Bloomfield in 2008 after Albuquerque police failed to arrest Bloomfield for two prior murders and multiple probation violations.

A Baltimore City jury awarded $436,211.75 to the estate of Toni L. Hoffman after finding the Maryland Transit Administration negligent for a 2014 incident in which closing light rail doors trapped her arm and dragged her roughly 20 feet along a station platform.

An El Paso County civil jury found auto lot owner Jovan Milanovic liable for the 2009 fatal shooting of Robert Johnson Fox, awarding $269,500 to Fox's three-year-old daughter after ruling that Colorado's Make My Day law does not shield business owners who use deadly force against trespassers.

Berry Law won a $250,000 verdict against the State of Nebraska for Thomas F. Davis, who spent 13 months in the state penitentiary after a Hall County jury convicted him in 1969 of killing his wife, a verdict the Nebraska Supreme Court reversed the following year after finding the trial was marred by withheld forensic evidence and prosecutorial misconduct.

Gallagher & Kennedy's Patrick McGroder and Matthew Boatman represented 12 families of the Granite Mountain Hotshots killed in the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire, settling with the State of Arizona for $50,000 per family plus a list of safety commitments.

The parents of Dominique Lucas, who was stabbed 33 times on an RTC bus in February 2023 while the driver kept the doors locked, reached a confidential settlement with Keolis Transit Services, the RTC, and the bus driver in March 2026.

The Iowa Supreme Court reversed the dismissal of state common law claims brought by the estate of Brent Boggess, a man fatally shot by a Waterloo police officer in November 2021, and remanded the case for further proceedings in district court.

Farris, Riley & Pitt secured a confidential settlement for the mother of Jamea Harris, a 23-year-old woman killed in a January 2023 shooting on the Tuscaloosa Strip, with proceeds placed in trust for her young son.

Armstrong Lee & Baker won reversal of a federal preemption dismissal, reviving negligence claims brought by the family of a Tyson Foods meatpacking worker who died of COVID-19 after a coworker with a known positive test continued coming to work.

The estate of Monica W. Vaught, 49, reached a confidential settlement in February 2025 with the City of Greenwood, Indiana, resolving federal civil rights and wrongful death claims stemming from a March 2022 police shooting in the Greenwood police department parking lot.

Appointed co-lead counsel in the federal Limitation of Liability proceedings, Lambert Zainey represented 14 of the 19 people aboard the Seacor Power, resolving all seven Jones Act death claims, six DOHSA claims, and six survivor claims by November 2023.

Burg Simpson secured a confidential settlement for the three children of Jason Varnish, 46, a New Jersey finance executive who died of positional asphyxiation after his jacket became entangled in a Blue Sky Basin chairlift at Vail in February 2020.

Farhan Naqvi represented the family of Tina Tintor in a wrongful death civil action against former Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver Henry Ruggs III, who killed the 23-year-old when he drove at 156 mph while drunk and struck her vehicle.

Cooper Elliott's Rex Elliott represented the parents of Ohio University freshman Collin Wiant, who died after months of Sigma Pi hazing, reaching a confidential settlement with the fraternity in a case that helped drive Ohio's 'Collin's Law.'

A 4-3 North Carolina Supreme Court decision held that state employees cannot invoke sovereign immunity to block individual-capacity wrongful death claims, arising from the death of an NCSU maintenance worker killed by a pressurized refrigerant flange.

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.

Leavitt, Yamane & Soldner, alongside two co-counsel firms, secured a confidential settlement for families of the four people killed in the July 2017 Marco Polo condominium fire in Honolulu, the costliest fire in Hawaii history.

Regan Zambri Long PLLC, co-counsel with two other Washington firms, secured a confidential settlement in November 2019 for more than 70 victims of the August 2016 natural gas explosion that destroyed two Silver Spring apartment buildings, killed seven residents, and sent dozens more to the hospital.

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.

Kim Brooks-Rodney of Cohen & Cohen filed a $100 million wrongful death complaint against Skyline Towers and property manager Equity Residential after a three-year-old boy fell 26 stories through a defective window screen in Fairfax County, alleging the company had known about the hazard since 2015 and failed to warn families.

Price Benowitz brought a federal civil rights and wrongful death suit after Alonzo Smith, 27, died in 2015 while special police officers restrained him face down at a Southeast Washington apartment complex.

Scott Abdallah obtained a pre-trial settlement against Deerfield Hutterian Brethren Colony on behalf of the family of Vannah Decker, a 15-year-old killed when a 17-year-old colony member drove an unlicensed, alcohol-impaired joyride at nearly 100 mph in a colony-owned vehicle.

Victor Pribanic secured a confidential settlement for the family of James Yingling III, a 35-year-old father of five who died after his Saturn Ion lost steering and braking when a defective GM ignition switch cut power to critical safety systems.

Christopher Dolan secured a confidential settlement from Uber in what is widely described as the first wrongful-death suit filed against the company over a driver's conduct, after a New Year's Eve 2013 crosswalk collision in San Francisco killed a 6-year-old girl.

Kevin Glasheen secured a confidential settlement from Union Pacific for 26 of 43 plaintiffs injured when a freight train struck a Veterans Day parade float in Midland, Texas in 2012, killing four decorated veterans.

The family of a construction superintendent fatally burned when an underground steam pipe ruptured in downtown Washington in 2004 settled their wrongful death case confidentially with the federal government, D.C. Water, and the contractors named in the suit.

Michael Slack and Ladd Sanger of Slack and Davis secured a confidential settlement in March 2014 for the family of Stuart Robertson, one of five people killed when a Blue Hawaiian Helicopters tour flight crashed into a mountain ridge on Molokai, Hawaii, on November 10, 2011.

Sugarman and Sugarman secured a confidential settlement for the family of a four-year-old Dudley boy who died after falling 18 feet through an oversized gap between a Sears escalator and its railing, a gap that exceeded state safety code and lacked a required barricade.

Patrick Regan and Salvatore Zambri represented families of nine people killed when a Red Line Metro train struck a stopped train near Fort Totten station on June 22, 2009, ultimately obtaining confidential settlements from WMATA and three equipment manufacturers who admitted liability.

Patrick Regan co-represented widow Kathy Wone in a $20 million wrongful death suit against three defendants acquitted of obstruction charges in the 2006 murder of Washington attorney Robert Wone, reaching a confidential settlement in August 2011.

In a landmark 2009 bellwether trial, U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval held the Army Corps of Engineers liable for negligent maintenance of the MRGO shipping channel, awarding roughly $719,000 to plaintiffs whose homes were destroyed when Hurricane Katrina surge poured through the corridor into St. Bernard Parish and the Lower Ninth Ward.

After two jury trials and years of appeals, the family of a New Mexico State Police officer killed in a 2001 air-ambulance helicopter crash won a wrongful-death verdict against the hospital that hired the operator without adequately vetting its fitness.

After a semi-truck jackknifed on black ice and killed Ronald Alleman in 2008, Tim Misny negotiated a settlement with the trucking company that included both financial compensation for the family and mandatory procedural changes to prevent similar crashes.

After a Federal Signal flasher on a Minneapolis police van disabled the brake-shift interlock and the van surged into a Holidazzle Parade crowd, killing two and injuring nine, James R. Schwebel and James S. Ballentine of Schwebel, Goetz and Sieben won a precedent-setting appeal holding that a self-insured municipality must pay no-fault benefits independent of the municipal tort liability cap.

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.

After Galaxy Airlines Flight 203 crashed on takeoff from Reno killing 70 of 71 aboard in January 1985, James Schwebel of Schwebel, Goetz, Sieben and Hanson served as counsel to the court-appointed Plaintiffs' Liability Committee, which coordinated liability discovery on behalf of all plaintiffs and was entitled to a percentage of each individual settlement.

A 1984 Polk County jury became the first in the nation to hold polyvinyl chloride wire insulation liable for fire deaths, finding six companies negligent in the 1978 blaze that killed ten Younkers department store employees.