Missouri's Top 20 Law Firms 2023: Meyers Law Firm

Staff Report//December 15, 2023//

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Largest Jury Verdict in Missouri

In 1992, Marty Meyers of the Meyers Law Firm in Kansas City won a $5 billion award for the family of a victim of Kansas City serial killer Robert Berdella, who murdered six young men at his Kansas City home in the mid-1980s.

Berdella eventually pleaded guilty to six counts of first- or second-degree murder in exchange for the prosecutor’s agreement not to seek the death penalty. He was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole and died in prison of a heart attack the same year the wrongful death verdict was rendered.

Meyers represented Betty Ann Haste, whose son, Todd Stoops, Berdella had killed in 1986. A Jackson County jury awarded $2.5 billion each in actual and punitive damages. Haste was later able to collect a portion of the damages from Berdella’s homeowner’s policy.

Missouri's Top 20 Law Firms 2023

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