Press Release
The National Law Journal Announces List of Big Money Wins 2014
Elite list of plaintiff’s practitioners compiled by using the amount of the jury verdict award or settlement
The National Law Journal Announces List of Big Money Wins 2014
Elite list of plaintiff’s practitioners compiled by using the amount of the jury verdict award or settlement
NEW YORK – November 24, 2014 – The National Law Journal has released its 2014 list of Big Money Wins, which catalogs the extraordinary accomplishments of the plaintiff’s lawyers using the amount of the jury verdict award or settlement.
Big Money Wins takes reported data from VerdictSearch, the leading publisher of verdict and settlement news and research to compile two separate lists of the top 50 verdict and settlement winners.
“It has been an extremely lucrative year for plaintiffs in the United States, with the top 50 jury verdict awards totaling over $34.4 billion and settlements adding up to $357 million,” said Tom Larranaga, publisher of The National Law Journal. “The year’s largest verdict awards were granted in a wide variety of cases, while motor vehicle and liability lawsuits were most likely to result in the largest settlements.”
This year’s largest jury verdict award was granted in a Pensacola, FL wrongful death case, Estate of Johnson v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., in which the jury determined that the company was negligent in failing to inform the plaintiff’s late husband of the health risks of tobacco. The court in that case ordered a staggering $23.6 billion settlement, one of the largest for a single plaintiff in state history. The plaintiff was represented by Willie E. Gary, Glenn A. Crickenberger and Donald N. Watson of Gary, Williams, Parenti, & Watson, P.L.L.C., Christopher M. Chestnut and Howard M. Acosta. Rounding out the top three are the high profile cases of Allen v. Takeda Pharmaceuticals International Inc. and Estate of Olson v. Huyndai Motor Co. respectively coming in at awards of $9 billion and $248 million.
The largest settlement of the year arose from In Re: Biomet M2a Magnum Hip Implant Products Liability Litigation, a product liability suit over the Biomet ’s allegedly defective metal-on-metal hip implant. The company settled with the plaintiff, Leslie Caccia, for $56 million. Caccia was represented by Thomas R. Anapol of Anapol Schwartz Attorneys At Law, Robert T. Dassow and Frederick R. Hovde of Hovde Dassow & Deets, LLC, Mark Lanier of The Lanier Law Firm and Ellen Relkin and Robert M. Silverman of Weitz & Luxenberg, P.C. Second place was Bender Shipbuilding and Repair Co. v. Caterpillar Inc. at $46 million and third was Matakitis v. Matakitis at $20.5 million.
Top Verdicts & Settlements Categories:
• Medical Malpractice
• Birth Injury
• Failure to Diagnose/Treat/Monitor/Test
• Misdiagnosis
• Surgery
• Intellectual Property
• Labor & Employment
• Motor Vehicle
• Bicycle
• Bus
• Left Turn
• Motorcycle
• Negligent Operation
• Passenger
• Construction Site Injury
The Big Money Wins 2014 advertising supplement will be featured in the NLJ’s Plaintiff’s Hot List special section.
The full list can be found on the National Law Journal website.
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