With just five days remaining in 2019, the Connecticut Law Tribune takes a look at the state's 10 highest verdicts and settlements over the past 12 months.

The top 10 verdicts and settlements range from $1.9 million to $23 million and include six vehicle crashes, including two fatalities. In addition, there were two medical malpractice cases; one fall on ice with serious injuries and—earlier this month—a multimillion-dollar wrongful death settlement for the estate of a teenage girl who was murdered by a peer in her high school.

Here are the verdicts and settlements, with the highest awards listed first:

$23,050,000:

The state's biggest pending payout of 2019 was a $23,050,000 jury verdict secured on behalf of a then-12-year-old boy who suffered skull fractures when the school bus he was a passenger in struck a tree.

The jury rendered its verdict in November in favor of paying plaintiff Gabriel Goncalves, who has autism. The plaintiff's attorneys—father-and-son team Michael and Jeremy D'Amico of Watertown-based D'Amico & Pettinicchi—had expressed outrage at what they claimed was the defense's attempts to paint Goncalves as an autistic boy with little or no future before the crash.

"It was sad that the defense looked at Gabriel that way before the crash," Michael D'Amico told the Connecticut Law Tribune at the time. The verdict, he said, was a vindication of sorts for the boy.

In court papers, the defense maintained the bus driver was neither negligent nor careless and claimed a car swerved in front of the bus distracting the bus driver. The defense attorney, solo practitioner G. Randall Avery, did not respond to a request for comment and Michele Wojcik of Cheshire-based Nuzzo & Roberts was on vacation and not available for comment.

$19,750,000:

In the state's second-largest payout of 2019, attorneys for insurance carriers and for the estate of a 38-year-old woman who died soon after a 23,000-pound truck struck her car reached a $19.75 million settlement just as jurors were deliberating the case in early August.

Cristina Vomoca died when the driver of a speeding truck slammed into the driver's side of Vomoca's Maserati Ghibli. Vomoca, who was driving the vehicle with her best friend in the passenger seat, was coming home from her job at a Greenwich hair salon at the time of the crash, according to the plaintiff's attorneys. Vomoca died eight days after the accident.

Paul Wilson, Vomoca's boyfriend, filed suit on behalf of the couple's 4-year-old son, Oliver, who will receive the settlement money when he turns 18 years old.

Representing the Vomoca estate were Silver, Golub & Teitell partner Angelo  Ziotas and co-counsel Marco Allocca and Sarah Ricciardi.

$18,653,570:

In the state's third-largest payout of 2019, plaintiff and defense attorneys agreed on a total award of $18,653,570 for a Pennsylvania man who suffered back and neck injuries after a tractor-trailer rear-ended his car in 2014.

A Stamford Superior Court jury in May awarded Jorge Amparo $14.2 million and his wife, Diva, about $800,000 for loss and future loss of consortium for a total award of $15 million. Both sides then filed postverdict motions, but then agreed in November on a total settlement of $18.6 million before a ruling on the postverdict motions was made.

Plaintiff counsel Brenden Leydon, a partner with Stamford-based Wocl Leydon, told the Connecticut Law Tribune at the time that his side had a motion pending for sanctions for discovery for misconduct during the case that had a risk for the defense.

Leydon said, "The [trucking] company's own policy barred the use of a cellphone, even hands-free, by its driver. They gave misleading information during the discovery process." Phone records showed the defendant, tractor-trailer driver Jose Ayala, was using his phone via Bluetooth at the time of the accident.

$5 million:

In the state's fourth-largest payout of 2019, the city of Milford and the estate of a 16-year-old high school junior who was stabbed to death at Milford's Jonathan Law High School reached a $5 million settlement on Dec. 2.

Attorneys for the estate of Maren Sanchez maintained two school counselors and a school nurse didn't follow school district protocol when Sanchez told them in November 2013 that fellow student Christopher Plaskon was emotionally disturbed and had allegedly threatened to harm himself and possibly others. Plaskon killed Sanchez with a knife in April 2014 on school grounds.

School protocol, according to plaintiff attorney David Golub of Stamford-based Silver Golub & Teitell, was for the three school personnel to tell administrators of the possible danger so they could immediately set up a clinical intervention team composed of counselors, nurses, and administrators. That, Golub said, never occurred.

$4.6 million:

In the state's fifth-largest payout of the year, Milford attorneys negotiated a $4.6 million settlement for a motorcyclist who suffered a traumatic brain injury and injuries to the right side of his body after the cycle he was riding struck a pickup truck in Kent in 2018. The settlement was reached in November.

According to lead plaintiffs attorney Gerard McEnery, founder of Milford-based McEnery, Price, Messey & Sullivan, defendant Tony Baker drove his pickup truck into an intersection and motorcyclist Paul Cheney, who was traveling 30 miles per hour in a 35-miles-per-hour zone, couldn't stop in time and hit the truck head-on.

"The defendant failed to make sure it was safe to go into the intersection and yield the right of way," McEnery told the Connecticut Law Tribune at the time.

In court papers before the settlement, the defense argued Cheney was negligent for his own accident, was driving too fast, and was inattentive to his surroundings.

$3.24 million:

In the state's sixth-largest pending payout of the year, a New Haven jury in October awarded $3.24 million to a woman who suffered a brain injury after she fell on accumulated snow and ice.

The jury rendered its verdict in favor of plaintiff Kimberly Taherian and against defendant Finast Acquisition LLC, which owned and maintained the parking lot of the CVS Pharmacy, where Taherian fell on her head after shopping.

Taherian had a laceration that required staples to the back of her head and experts said she has constant headaches and problems sleeping.

$3.2 million:

In the state's seventh-largest payout of 2019, attorneys for Jessica Girard helped secure a $3.2 million settlement for injuries she sustained in a 2016 rear-end collision.

According to the lawsuit filed in 2018, defendant Eric Plourde's Chevrolet Silverado K1500 LT rear-ended motorist Lizette Guzman's Honda Accord, which then struck Girard's vehicle from behind. Plourde, the plaintiff's attorney said, admitted to investigators that he was looking down at his radio and adjusting it when the crash occurred.

Girard has had multiple surgeries and was forced to leave her job as a data entry worker for a medical records company.

$2.7 million:

In the state's eighth-largest pending payout of the year, attorneys for the estate of a Connecticut woman who died from lung cancer after allegedly being misdiagnosed with inflammation of the pancreas received a $2.7 million jury award in January.

The jury in the medical malpractice case heard testimony that a doctor botched the interpretation of a test that showed Gail Ingram had a suspicious one-centimeter nodule on the base of her right lung. Ingram was told she had inflammation of her pancreas instead and died less than two years after the misdiagnosis.

Attorneys for Ingram told the Connecticut Law Tribune at the time that when the mistake was realized it was too late and the suspicious nodule had turned into a four-centimeter metastasized mass.

$2 million:

The state's ninth-largest payout of 2019 was also a medical malpractice case.

In this case, New London-based attorney Kelly Reardon, managing partner of The Reardon Law Firm, helped negotiate a $2 million settlement in July on behalf of a 69-year-old man who died of tongue cancer because of the alleged negligence of three Department of Veterans Affairs doctors. Reardon had sued the U.S. government.

Reardon alleged the doctors misdiagnosed James Hoznor, who died in July 2017 of cancer of the tongue. The cancer was not correctly diagnosed, Reardon said at the time, until 18 months after a neck X-ray showing the cancer was taken.

Reardon said valuable time was lost and Hoznor eventually died less than two years after being transferred from Veterans Affairs to Yale New Haven Hospital.

$1.9 million:

The state's 10-largest payout of the year was a June settlement for $1.9 and went to Loreta Vaichus, who suffered serious injuries in an April 2018 car crash.

Vaichus suffered injuries to her spleen, liver and kidney following a two-car collision in Middlebury. According to the September 2018 filed lawsuit, Christina Robinson, who had worked at the Woodbury-based Good News Cafe. was drunk when she smashed her vehicle into the passenger side of Vaichus' vehicle.

Vaichus' attorney sued the establishment, claiming negligence because Robinson had stayed after her shift and drank. Robinson died in the crash.