Personal injury lawyers are either champions of the people or rapacious parasites, depending on your political persuasion. In my view, both species exist - why should trial lawyers be any different from politicians, CEOs or journalists? Nevertheless, the civil courts have undoubtedly benefited citizens in their mismatched battles with government, business and other huge institutions. When the legislative and executive branches have often been paralyzed, meaningful change has still happened via the courts.

The latest issue of Minnesota Law & Politics magazine has a list of the state’s top-grossing personal injury cases of 2007, along with a list of the lawyers and firms that represented the plaintiffs. In some cases, the plaintiffs aren’t identified, presumably because the case was settled before it was ever filed. The 37 cases are truly a litany of horrors:

First on the list is $57 million in a case called “In re A.P.I. Inc.” after “693 individuals settled lawsuits against the St. Paul-based insulation distributor and contractor after suffering from one or more asbestos-related diseases.” (Sieben Polk)

Third, at $4.5 million, is a familiar case for those who follow the news: “Minneapolis police officer Duy Ngo was shot multiple times by a fellow officer while working undercover in 2003. He underwent 26 surgeries.” (Flynn Gaskins Bennett)

The cases are primarily auto accidents and medical malpractice. It’s interesting that death cases often have smaller settlements than those in which people survive with severe injuries. Here are some other cases:

$3.1 million: “While inner-tubing on Christmas Lake, an 18-year-old male’s right arm was severed above the elbow when a 14-year-old boater drove over him.” (Robins Kaplan Miller & Ciresi)

$1.7 million: “A 52-year-old man died of a massive heart attack two days after visiting his regular family physician, who misread an EKG as ‘unremarkable’ and failed to intervene.” (Mackenzie & Dornik)

$1.3 million: “A 15-year-old girl died of massive blood loss shock after doctors failed to diagnose her mononucleosis and instead performed an unnecessary surgery to remove her gallbladder” (Robins Kaplan Miller & Ciresi)

$1 million: “A woman’s skin turned a permanent shade of blue-gray after consumption of a nutritional supplement containing a heavy metal as its ‘active ingredient.’” (Goldenberg & Johnson)

This entry was posted on Monday, June 9th, 2008 at 11:55 am and is filed under Dangerous products, Problems on the job. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.