It’s an unavoidable reality of today’s news media environment that large plaintiff verdicts inevitably generate the most headlines and public attention. However in courtrooms across the country, week after week, juries also return defense verdicts in high-stakes civil trials that, without a news organization like Courtroom View Network there to cover them, would fade quietly into the background.
A dedicated commitment to equal coverage and promotion of plaintiff and defense verdicts is a central pillar of CVN’s editorial philosophy. Many legal news reporters take interest in a trial only after a jury weighs in, but due to CVN’s commitment to gavel-to-gavel coverage we show up at the start of the trial - committed to remaining for the duration and reporting the outcome however the jury decides.
As a follow-up to CVN’s popular annual list of Top 10 Most Impressive Plaintiff Verdicts of 2025, we are excited to present our equally anticipated companion list of top 10 Most Impressive Defense Verdicts that CVN covered over the last year.
CVN’s editorial team firmly believes the public benefits greatly from learning a jury determined a product wasn’t defectively designed, that a physician did meet the standard of care, or that a driver in a multi-car pileup didn’t contribute to the accident. In an era of shrinking newsroom budgets these defense verdicts may not move the needle for many outlets, but they’re a critical part of CVN’s ongoing trial coverage.
CVN also recognizes the reality that many defense attorneys are skeptical of cameras in the courtroom. Some of the coverage below even took place over strong defense objections. We only hope that as more attorneys on both sides learn about CVN’s commitment to unobtrusive, non-disruptive, respectful and balanced trial coverage that a CVN camera in the courtroom won’t be seen as a hostile presence.
CVN ranked these trials by taking into consideration the facts and challenges of the case, the attorneys involved, and the potential broader impact on other litigation. These cases (limited to trials CVN had the opportunity to film) feature some of the most elite, highly sought defense counsel in the country arguing in high-stakes cases before real judges and real juries and going up against some of the most dynamic plaintiff attorneys practicing today. Watching advocates of this caliber firsthand in real trials is an invaluable experience for any attorney.
Sign up today for a monthly or annual CVN video library subscription and get unlimited access to all of these trials, in addition to all the trials on our top 10 plaintiff list and hundreds more - including all the trials on our top 10 defense verdict lists from years past.
Have any questions about CVN? Drop us a line any time. Now on to the trials!
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#1 - Colorado Jury Clears Sterilization Company Over Toxic Ethylene Oxide Emissions
Isaaks v. Terumo Sterilization Services Inc. - Jefferson, CO
Defense attorneys: Luke McFarland (pictured, currently with Norton Rose Fulbright), John Ewald, Randall Butterfield, Andrew Whittaker, Nicholas Howell, Angela Tarasi, Sarah Warburg-Koechlin and Douglas Henderson of King & Spalding
Click here to watch the full trial
Why it made the list:
Litigation involving exposure to ethylene oxide fumes, also known as ETO, represents a major emerging mass tort in the United States. Medical and other industrial facilities across the country utilize ETO gas for sterilization purposes, with numerous lawsuits alleging the release of toxic fumes from those facilities injured surrounding residents.
Last March in Colorado state court the first ETO exposure case subject to gavel-to-gavel video coverage went to trial before a Jefferson County jury, and after a lengthy four-week trial in which four woman claimed exposure to ETO fumes caused their cancer, the jury cleared defendant Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies of all liability.
The case remains one of the few ETO trials to go before a jury. A second ETO trial in the same court gets underway shortly and will also be streamed by CVN, but this definitive defense verdict in an emerging mass tort of national significance comes in as the clear choice for the number one most impressive defense verdict CVN covered in 2025.
Read more via the CVN News Blog
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#2: Jury Clears AutoZone In $10M+ Battery Lawsuit After Customer Attacked In Store
Raymundo-Lazaro v. Autozone - Las Vegas, NV
Defense attorneys: William Coggshall (pictured) and Jacqueline Dubois of Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani LLP, Todd Prall of Hutchison & Steffen and Theodore Parker of Parker Nelson
Click here to watch the full trial
Why it made the list:
At first glance the facts of this case sound like something any company would resolve pre-trial. A customer comes into a retail business. An employee punches him in the face following a customer service dispute. Settlement incoming, right?
Not for the defense team led by William Coggshall of Gordon Rees brought in by AutoZone after an employee attacked a customer for calling him a racist, supposedly causing a brain injury worth $10 million dollars and unspecified punitive damages.
Despite the employee being convicted on criminal battery charges, AutoZone successfully argued the company was not liable for the incident, maintaining the assault occurred outside the scope of Guerra’s official employment duties, and that a manager present in the store was not negligent by failing to immediately intervene.
By winning over a Las Vegas jury despite this daunting set of facts, and also facing a plaintiff firm with a national reputation for landing major verdicts, AutoZone’s defense team secured the second most impressive defense verdict CVN covered in 2025.
Read more via the CVN News Blog
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#3 - Logging Company Defeats $73M Wrongful Death Lawsuit
Susman v. R&T Logging - Eugene, OR
Defense attorneys: Jeffrey Hansen of Chock Barhoum LLP
Click here to watch the full trial
Why it made the list:
CVN’s third most impressive defense verdict of 2025 also involves a defendant who was criminally sentenced for his conduct, but with the assistance of ace-level defense counsel his employer managed to avoid civil liability for an incident potentially worth tens of millions of dollars in damages.
Last July an Oregon state court jury delivered a a defense verdict for a logging company in a wrongful death lawsuit stemming from an intoxicated truck driver crashing and sending his cargo of logs tumbling into another car.
The Lane County jury returned their verdict following an eight-day trial. The family of the decedent plaintiff sought roughly $73 million in damages for her 2021 death, claiming defendant R&T Logging was negligent in hiring an allegedly unqualified driver with a checkered safety record. Despite the driver being sentenced to 10 years in prison for manslaughter over the incident, R&T successfully argued they reasonably relied on a solid recommendation from another company with an established reputation and shouldn’t be held responsible for the driver’s individual conduct.
Read more via the CVN News Blog
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#4 - Jury Clears ER Doc In $9M Endoscopy Wrongful Death Trial
Golden v. Central Florida Health - Sumter County, FL
Defense attorneys: Wilbert Vancol of McEwan Martinez Dukes & Hall PA
Click here to watch the full trial
Why it made the list:
Medical malpractice trials involving high-risk procedures or emergency treatment of severe traumatic injuries pose a major challenge for plaintiff attorneys in even the most plaintiff-friendly jurisdictions. However wrongful death cases that stem from the type of routine medical procedures any average person has either undergone themselves or knows someone who has can pose a unique challenge for defense counsel.
That’s the situation defense attorney Wilbert Vancol faced last June in Florida, when a state court jury delivered a defense verdict clearing an emergency room physician of responsibility for allegedly failing to diagnose a fatal hole in a woman’s throat following a routine endoscopy procedure.
The Sumter County jury returned their verdict the same day they heard closing arguments. The plaintiff accused Dr. Frank Cantrell of failing to order a crucial chest x-ray that would have revealed the perforation and saved his his late wife’s life, but the defense successfully argued she presented in the emergency room with symptoms indicating pancreatitis - another common endoscopy complication.
Read more via the CVN News Blog
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#5 - Dallas Jury Clears Texas DOT Over Fatal Highway Crash
Rush v. Texas Department of Transportation - Dallas, TX
Defense attorneys: David Strain, Texas Attorney General’s Office
Click here to watch the full trial
Why it made the list:
A Texas jury sided with the state’s Department of Transportation in January of 2025 in a wrongful death lawsuit stemming from a fatal single-vehicle highway crash.
The Dallas County jury rejected allegations from the family of Timothy Rush that a damaged piece of highway safety equipment called a crash cushion contributed to his death in 2021. Rush, 34 at the time, died after driving into the collapsed cushion, also known as a traffic attenuator, which his widow and daughter claim could have saved his life had it been swapped out for new unit.
TX DOT successfully argued jurors should reject the plaintiffs request for $2.2 million in economic damages and an unspecified amount of non-economic damages, maintaining Rush was responsible for the accident, and that DOT learned of the damaged cushion too soon before the crash occurred to replace it.
Read more via the CVN News Blog
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#6 - Jury Finds Claim Against R.J. Reynolds Over Deadly Throat Cancer Is Time-Barred
Perez v. R.J. Reynolds - Santa Fe, NM
Defense attorneys: Jennifer Weizenecker (pictured) and Jose Isasi of Jones Day
Click here to watch the full trial
Why it made the list:
Last November a New Mexico State court jury cleared R.J. Reynolds of responsibility for the fatal throat cancer a decedent suffered after smoking the company’s cigarettes for decades.
The Santa Fe County jury concluded the suit against Reynolds over the laryngeal cancer that ultimately killed Juan Gonzales was barred by the applicable statute of limitations. Moreover, jurors specifically found for Reynolds in each of the underlying claims of defect, negligence, and conspiracy.
The nine-day trial turned in large part on whether the disease diagnosed in 2016 was a recurrence of the disease in 2008, which would bar the lawsuit under the statute of limitations. The jury also cleared retail chain Allsup’s Convenience Stores, which had allegedly sold Gonzalez Reynolds cigarettes.
Read more via the CVN News Blog
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#7 - Florida Jury Rejects $14M Lawsuit Over Triple Car Crash
Carey v. Gupta - Palm Beach County, FL
Defense attorneys: Marc Schechter of Robinson Pecaro & Mier
Click here to watch the full trial
Why it made the list:
A Florida state court jury returned a defense verdict last May in a lawsuit stemming from a three-car pileup.
The Palm Beach County jury delivered their verdict shortly after hearing closing arguments in a trial that required jurors to analyze the components of a complex, multi-vehicle collision. Plaintiffs Charles and Deborah Carey, in addition to another driver Peter Lafroscia, sued defendant Sanjeet Gupta in 2022 after he collided with both of their vehicles.
They sought more than $14 million in damages, but the defense successfully argued that despite speeding at the time Gupta didn’t cause the collision and was instead cut off by Lafroscia.
Read more via the CVN News Blog
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#8 - Georgia Jury Clears Doctor at Trial Over Patient's Post-Op Death From Sepsis
Roberts, et al. v Cogent Healthcare of Macon, LLC, et al. - Macon, GA
Defense attorneys: Michael Frankson (pictured) and Antonio Veal of Huff Powell & Bailey LLC
Click here to watch the full trial
Why it made the list:
Last October a Georgia state court jury cleared a doctor of responsibility for the sepsis-related death of a patient days after he underwent surgery.
The Bibb County jury deliberated less than half a day before concluding Dr. Vikram Sangani was not negligent in the care of Lonnie Roberts, 61, who died from septic shock in January 2020, 15 days after surgery to remove a mass in his intestine.
Sangani, a hospitalist, was part of a team of physicians treating Roberts while he was in a hospital intensive care unit recovering from the procedure. Roberts’ family contends Sangani failed to act appropriately in the face of tell-tale signs of a leak in the seam created in his intestine during the surgery, called an anastomosis, which ultimately led to Roberts’ death.
Read more via the CVN News Blog
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#9 - CA Jury Rejects Former City Employee’s $6.7M Wrongful Termination Lawsuit
Suzanne Ruelas v. City of Baldwin Park, et al. - Los Angeles, CA
Defense attorneys: Savannah Skelton (pictured) of Leal Trejo APC, Steven Gatley of Lewis Brisbois and Lerae Ettienne of Ettienne Law PC
Click here to watch the full trial
Why it made the list:
A California state court jury delivered a defense verdict last May in a lawsuit filed by a former City of Baldwin Park housing manager claiming she was forced to resign for speaking out against allegedly unlawful conduct by city employees.
Plaintiff Suzanne Ruelas sued Baldwin Park after retiring in 2019, alleging she was forced to quit after voicing complaints about supposed misuse of federal funds, in addition to being discriminated against due to her age and ethnicity after accusing the city’s CEO of supposedly making racially insensitive comments.
Represented by one of the most accomplished employment law plaintiff firms in California, she sought roughly $6.7 million in damages, but the defense successfully argued that Ruelas' problems in the workplace were the result of being denied a raise, and that the federal funds in question were spent on authorized projects.
Read more via the CVN News Blog
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#10 - Heart Surgeon Cleared in Med Mal Trial Over Patient's Ultimately Fatal Stroke
Tyson v. Messina - Jacksonville, FL
Defense attorneys: Davis Love (pictured) and Brian Pederson of Childs Hester & Love PA
Click here to watch the full trial
Why it made the list:
In November a Florida state court jury cleared a surgeon of responsibility for the catastrophic, and ultimately fatal, stroke a Florida minister suffered during heart surgery.
The Jacksonville County jury wrapped a four-day trial by concluding Dr. Jack John Messina was not responsible for the stroke Paul Tyson suffered during a 2018 heart bypass operation.
The trial involved a clergyman who died in February 2019, roughly eight months after he suffered the stroke. His widow contends Messina was responsible for failing to ensure there were no blood clots in a cardiopulmonary machine, sometimes called a heart-lung bypass machine, before surgery.
Read more via the CVN News Blog
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Email David Siegel at dsiegel@cvn.com