Verdicts & Testimonials
The partners practicing in The Cochran Firm have obtained by verdict or settlement significant results in a variety of practice areas, including those highlighted below.
With over $45 Billion obtained in Verdicts, Settlements and Judgments, the partners of The Cochran Firm have won 10 unprecedented Verdicts in excess of $100 Million each… more than 35 Verdicts in excess of $10 Million each … and hundreds of Verdicts or Settlements in excess of $1 Million.
AUTO, TRUCK AND VEHICLE ACCIDENTS
$20.2 MILLION JURY VERDICT awarded to the family of a 62 year old school teacher who suffered injuries when his car was struck from behind by a truck. The driver of the truck worked two jobs, resulting in a severe lack of sleep. The defendant company violated transportation regulations by failing to ask their employee about second jobs which would impede his performance. This is the largest verdict in the history of Clayton County, Georgia and the largest verdict in a wrongful death case with a female and an African American as lead attorneys
$197 MILLION JURY VERDICT on behalf of plaintiffs injured when their rented car, insufficiently equipped with seatbelts, collided with a disabled tractor trailer truck. This was the largest personal injury verdict of any kind in the history of the state of New York.
$100 MILLION JURY VERDICT in a pedestrian knock down case when a mother and child were struck by a car.
$51.4 MILLION JURY VERDICT for a young girl whose right forearm was crushed when she fell beneath the wheels of a streetcar in New Orleans during a birthday party.
$33.5 MILLION JURY VERDICT against the City of New York for a wrongful death suit resulting from negligent highway design and maintenance.
$14.4 MILLION JURY VERDICT when an asphalt truck, improperly serviced and inspected by the driver and asphalt company, caused a chain collision. The crash resulted in brain damage to a nephrology surgeon and the deaths of her husband and 81 year old mother who were passengers in the vehicle.
$32.5 MILLION SETTLEMENT for passengers in a van hit by a bus. One female client sustained severe internal injuries which resulted in seven reconstructive surgeries and TPN intravenous nutrition for the remainder of her life.
$25 MILLION JURY VERDICT against a drunk driver and a bar for the wrongful death of a jogger struck and killed by the drunk driver. This case was a dram shop action against the bar that served the drunk driver and against the driver whose blood alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit.
$23.5 MILLION JURY VERDICT on behalf of a young woman who suffered severe brain injury after a tractor-trailer collided with the van in which she was a passenger. The client was rendered totally dependent on others for her care and would need lifetime nursing care as a result of this collision.
MEDICAL MALPRACTICE / PROFESSIONAL NEGLIGENCE
$32.9 MILLION JURY VERDICT for an infant who suffered brain damage after an unnecessary premature delivery. The mother received improper medical procedures after a cancer diagnosis during her pregnancy. The infant suffered from respiratory distress and required mechanical ventilation.
$12 MILLION JURY VERDICT awarded to the family of an infant when a medical resident failed to seek the attending doctor’s advice and delayed a cesarean section birth. The infant suffered meconium aspiration and required placement on a heart lung machine before dying due to infection.
$45.6 MILLION JURY VERDICT for legal malpractice, fraud, and breach of fiduciary duty involving concealment of conflict of interest in a real estate transaction. A confidential settlement was reached before the punitive damage phase of the trial.
PREMISES LIABILITY
$40 MILLION JURY VERDICT for a worker paralyzed when he fell six floors through an open elevator shaft.
$20 MILLION JURY VERDICT for a professional avocado picker electrocuted by hidden power lines while working. Injuries caused amputation of both arms and a portion of one leg. This is the largest judgment against Southern California Edison in a personal injury suit.
$75 MILLION SETTLEMENT obtained on behalf of the victims in a wrongful death and personal injury suit when scaffolding fell from the John Hancock building in Chicago. The Firm’s wrongful death client’s amount represented 14.1% of the total $75 Million settlement amount in the case involving these death claims and eleven injury claims.
$13.75 MILLION SETTLEMENT for a 6 year-old boy who was injured in the locker room of a community fitness center when a row of lockers, weighing approximately 400 pounds, fell on him.
$9.6 MILLION SETTLEMENT from a building management company for the estate of an attorney who was among five people killed in an October 2003 high-rise office building fire in Chicago. The plaintiffs sued the building management company for improperly evacuating occupants of the building, failing to inform firefighters of the evacuation plan, and ignoring security console signals that the evacuees were trapped.
CLASS ACTIONS / MASS TORTS / PHARMACEUTICAL LITIGATION
OVER $1 BILLION IN RECOVERIES against American Home Products, the manufacturer of the weight loss drug Fen-Phen.
$42 MILLION JURY VERDICT against Pfizer, parent company of Warner Lambert Company, when a client suffered side effects from using the diabetes drug Rezulin.
THE COCHRAN FIRM is involved in a number of significant class actions against large corporations that have caused harm to consumers. The Firm is also active in handling numerous types of cases against pharmaceutical manufacturers selling drugs that are dangerous and harmful to consumers. The talent and resources of The Cochran Firm have made it a national leader in Mass Tort litigation.
COMMERCIAL AND COMPLEX LITIGATION
OVER $35 BILLION recovered in settlements from the tobacco industry, drug companies, and product manufacturers.
$240 MILLION JURY VERDICT against The Walt Disney Company for breaching a confidential relationship, stealing trade secrets, and breaking an implied contract.
OVER $200 MILLION in added shareholder value recovered in a shareholder derivative and breach of contract suit on behalf of a speedway corporation’s shareholders against NASCAR. The plaintiff claimed that NASCAR had conspired with its sister corporation to illegally restrain trade.
$27 MILLION JURY VERDICT against The Republic of Cuba when a Cuban spy falsely married a South Florida woman in order infiltrate the Miami exile community and subsequently report local Cuban affairs to Cuban intelligence.
RECORD $67 MILLION JURY VERDICT awarded to the family of the victim of unlawful torture and execution by The Republic of Cuba.
$9 MILLION JURY VERDICT against an equipment lease/ brokerage firm when the original terms of an equipment lease / purchase agreement were not honored, resulting in higher payments and interest rates for the plaintiff.
THE FIRM handles other significant commercial litigation for businesses and corporations with claims against insurance companies and other business entities. The nature of this work and the results obtained are kept confidential at the request of our clients.
ENVIRONMENTAL LITIGATION
$700 MILLION JUDGEMENT AND SETTLEMENT for individuals receiving property damage and personal injuries from exposure to the chemical PCB when the chemical was allowed to migrate offsite from a chemical plant.
$381 MILLION JURY VERDICT against E.I. DuPont for negligence in creating a 112-acre zinc waste site in Spelter, West Virginia, putting area residents at risk of cancer, heart disease, and lead poisoning. DuPont was ordered to pay for property clean-up and provide medical monitoring for community residents.
$55 MILLION RECOVERY for property damage and personal injury to victims of a corporation’s toxic pollution. An entire neighborhood was contaminated from exposure to the chemical creosote.
$70 MILLION SETTLEMENT with Conoco Phillips who agreed to pay Florida residents whose property was contaminated by a toxic plume that spread from an old Agrico Chemical Company fertilizer plant.
PRODUCT LIABILITY
$114 MILLION JURY VERDICT for electrical burns and double arm amputations due to a defective aerial lift device used by an electrical lineman while working on power lines.
$55.4 MILLION JURY VERDICT against Continental General Tire, Inc. when a twenty-eight year old medical technician was paralyzed after her car’s tire tread suddenly unraveled, causing her vehicle to crash into an embankment. This was the first tread separation trial after the massive national tire recalls and the highest tire tread blowout verdict to date.
$15 MILLION SETTLEMENT awarded to the family of three children killed in a fire caused by a faulty space heater. Security bars were on the windows with no safety release, and the children were unable to escape or be rescued.
MORE THAN $27 MILLION IN JURY VERDICTS AND SETTLEMENTS for victims injured and burned by defective utility bucket trucks used by employees of electrical power companies.
$11.9 MILLION JURY VERDICT against a manufacturer of an aerial lift device for failure to adequately warn of the electrocution hazards of the product and cover exposed metal on the boom tip of the lift truck.
CONSUMER FRAUD
$1.6 BILLION JURY VERDICT against Southwestern Life Insurance Company for defrauding the plaintiff by breaching their insurance contract, stealing the insurance premiums, and allowing several insurance policies of family members to lapse. This verdict was the largest civil verdict in the United States for the year 2004.
$80 MILLION JURY VERDICT against Orkin for a woman whose home was destroyed by termites after she was defrauded by the company. This verdict was the largest civil verdict in the history of Macon County, Alabama.
POLICE MISCONDUCT AND MUNICIPAL LIABILITY
$76 MILLION VERDICT against New York City. NYPD undercover officers stopped a car with two male passengers. Officers mistakenly thought that the occupants of the car might have drugs. Both were severely and unjustifiably beaten with one client receiving brain damage. No weapons or drugs were in the vehicle.
$33 MILLION JURY VERDICT against Budget Rent-A-Car and the City of Los Angeles Police Department when switched license plates led to a traffic stop and subsequent police misconduct that caused permanent injuries to a Miami surgeon.
RECORD $104 MILLION JURY VERDICT for two brothers rendered quadriplegic when diving off a city pier into shallow water. The beach was unattended by a life guard, and the pier did not have an adequate warning of danger.
$25 MILLION JURY VERDICT to a 40 year old incomplete quadriplegic when he fell from his wheelchair on a lift because of the negligence of the driver of a paratransit bus. This was the largest verdict for a single personal injury claim in Nevada history.
$18 MILLION SETTLEMENT awarded to the family of a victim who was pursued by a Chicago police officer. The victim was shot and killed when the police officer mistakenly assumed the victim had a gun. This case is reported to be the largest police misconduct/wrongful death settlement in Chicago.
$25.6 MILLION STRUCTURED SETTLEMENT awarded to the victim whose legs were amputated above the knee as a result of the Staten Island Ferry accident. This was the second highest settlement ever paid by New York City.
$10.9 MILLION SETTLEMENT against Oakland Police officers known as the Riders when 119 individuals were falsely arrested after drugs were planted on them and were subjected to excessive force. This case brought reforms to the Oakland Police Internal Affairs Department, use of force reports, and new tracking systems for officer data.
$6.9 MILLION SETTLEMENT for the plaintiff who was sitting in a car parked on the side of a Los Angeles highway. The plaintiff’s vehicle was broadsided by a police vehicle driven by a LAPD officer. The police vehicle was traveling 51 miles per hour in a 35 miles per hour zone without sirens activated and had swerved to avoid a another moving vehicle.
AVIATION LITIGATION
$15 MILLION JURY VERDICT in a wrongful death lawsuit against Singapore Airlines by adult children whose parents were killed when SAL Flight SQ006 crashed before takeoff at Chiang Kai Shek International Airport.
CONFIDENTIAL SETTLEMENTS against Alaska Airlines and Boeing for admitted aircraft defective design which resulted in an airline crash off the coast of California.
EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION AND CIVIL RIGHTS
RECORD $192.5 MILLION SETTLEMENT against the Coca-Cola Company. This is the largest settlement of a racial discrimination case against a private employer.
CONFIDENTIAL SETTLEMENT against the John Deere Company when a 30-year employee was twice denied ownership of a dealership. As a result of this highly publicized case, the John Deere Company was ordered to create at least 20 African-American owned dealerships by 2014.
NURSING HOME NEGLIGENCE
CONFIDENTIAL SETTLEMENTS to the families of two victims who died in the disastrous NHC Nursing Home fire which ultimately killed 20 residents. One of the victims died tragically in her bed. As a result of this lawsuit, the state of Tennessee passed a law mandating that all nursing homes in Tennessee must have smoke detectors in each room.
$2.35 MILLION SETTLEMENT for the family of an 83 year-old nursing home resident who was neglected for months, resulting in bed sores which ultimately caused her death. Additionally, the nursing home chart continued to state the patient was doing well one week after her death.
$3.5 MILLION SETTLEMENT for the family of a 79 year-old nursing home resident who was neglected and developed multiple deep bed sores, resulting in the amputation of both legs. The victim ultimately died from these injuries.