Top Verdicts & Settlements 2018: Significant wins from beyond Missouri courts

Although our annual Verdicts & Settlements rankings are restricted to cases resolved in Missouri courts, our database contains many significant cases that Missouri attorneys won in other states. Here are some of the cases we highlighted from outside the state:

• In Repsher v. Air Methods Corporation et al., Gary C. Robb and Anita Porte Robb of Robb & Robb in Kansas City reached a $100 million settlement for a flight nurse who was severely burned in a medical-helicopter crash in Colorado. The settlement with the manufacturer and the local operator of the helicopter appears to be the largest pre-trial settlement for a single injured plaintiff in the country.
• In Hansen v. Hamilton, Roger Johnson and Anna Sanderson of Johnson, Vorhees & Martucci in Joplin won a $38.5 million jury verdict in Cherokee County, Kansas, for a young woman paralyzed in a severe crash while waiting to turn into her own driveway.
• In Kaiser v. Ethicon Inc., Jeffrey Kuntz and Andrew N. Faes of Wagstaff & Cartmell in Kansas City helped to secure a $35 million win in Indiana federal court for a woman who alleged injuries from implantation of a transvaginal mesh device.
• In Hobbs v. Gorham, Kirk Presley of Presley & Presley and Brett Williams of Brown & Crouppen secured a $15 million settlement in Wyandotte County District Court in Kansas for a man who suffered a traumatic brain injury in a car crash. An insurer for the defendant agreed to the settlement ahead of trial after initially denying the claim.
• In Turubchuk v. Southern Illinois Asphalt Company Inc. et al., Jamie L. Boock, Matthew J. Rossiter and John P. Guletz of Rossiter & Boock in St. Louis persuaded a federal jury in southern Illinois to order a company to pay nearly $8.17 million to the survivors of two men killed in a 2005 wreck. The underlying case had reached an earlier settlement, but the plaintiffs belatedly discovered that the defendants had far more insurance coverage than realized at the time of the men’s deaths.