Karen E. Terry
Shareholder
KAREN E. TERRY is a Shareholder at Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley, P.A. in West Palm Beach and has been with the firm close to 28 years. Recently, Ms. Terry is Florida Bar Board Certified in civil trial law as well as in health care and medical malpractice, which are the highest honors one can achieve. For the last 10 plus years in a row, she has been named as one of The Best Lawyers in America. Recently honored as one of the top-rated lawyers in health care in the United States, Ms. Terry also was selected as one of the Top 100 Lawyers in the country and Top 10 Best Female Attorneys in Florida.
Courtroom View Network recognized Ms. Terry for Top Plaintiffs’ Verdicts in 2015 and the Daily Business Review recognized her for Top Plaintiffs’ Verdicts in 2019 and 2022. She received the highest honor awarded by the Daily Business Review as its 2016 Product Liability Litigation Lawyer of the Year. Ms. Terry was selected as The Lawyer of the Year, 2017, in Mass Torts Litigation/Class Actions by Best Lawyers in America. In 2018, she also became a Supreme Court Certified Circuit Mediator in Florida.
Ms. Terry has tried many big cases, but in August 2007, she received a jury verdict of over $25 million in Polk County, Florida against Walgreens for misfiling a prescription. In 2013, she also received a jury verdict of over $12 million in Palm Beach County, Florida and was inducted into the Florida’s Verdicts Hall of Fame for this case. She achieved the first verdict in the U.S. against a medical concierge company for the negligence of its doctor in causing catastrophic consequences for a woman.
Ms. Terry has been selected as one of the top five litigators by Florida Trend magazine and the South Florida Legal Guide. For the past 27 years she has been a member of the Florida Justice Association and the Palm Beach County Justice Association and has been active in her community. She recently was selected into the prestigious organizations the International Society of Barristers and the American College of Trial Lawyers. Ms. Terry is past President of the Palm Beach Chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates and in 2022 received a very high honor of Trial Lawyer of the Year.
Before joining Searcy Denney, Ms. Terry clerked for former Chief Judge Walter Colbath of the 15th Judicial Circuit. A native of South Florida, she graduated cum laude from Duke University in three years. She then graduated with honors and earned a master’s degree simultaneously from the University of Florida College of Law.
To learn more about Karen E. Terry, see:
Publications & Presentations
- Many of the Nation’s Nursing Homes Had a Bad Record Before COVID — Now Hit With an Alarming Spike in New COVID Cases
- Women’s Right To Vote — Why Did Suffrage Take A Century To Achieve?
- Is Gender Bias in Automobile Safety Costing Women’s Lives?
- Women’s History Month: ‘Valiant Women of the Vote: Refusing To Be Silenced’
- Is Rapid Really a Good Thing? — FDA-Approved Over-the-Counter COVID-19 Test Recalled
- Christmas Tree Safety: Don’t Let the Most Wonderful Time of the Year Go up in Smoke
- 800,000 Mercedes-Benz Vehicles at Risk for Serious Fires – Mercedes says they can’t fix them
- How Can You Steal From Our Most Vulnerable Citizens? — FTC: Nursing Homes Are Stealing in a COVID-19 World
- Elder Care Facilities and Nursing Homes Putting Patients at Risk — Long Before Coronavirus
- Agency Overseeing Florida Nursing Homes Asks for ‘Sovereign Immunity’ for Corporate Nursing Home Industry
- Washers, Dryers — How Can Children Be at Risk?
- Rock ’n Play, Rocking Sleeper Unsafe? Sleepers Recalled as Debate Continues
- Elder Drivers, Driving Privileges and Safer Roads — Do we need regulation?
- Is Tort Reform in the Best Interests of the Public? The Numbers’ Don’t Lie and Insurance Company Exec’s agree It is in No One’s Best Interests, Except Insurers
Awards
- Top 10 Most Impressive Plaintiff Verdicts of 2021 by CVN
- 2019 Legal Elite Hall of Fame
- 2019 Super Lawyers
- Top Lawyers 2019 by Palm Beach Illustrated
- Board Certified Specialist in Healthcare and Medical Malpractice, 2016 – current
- American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA), 2009 – Present
- Best Lawyers in America, 2009-Present
- Top Lawyer in South Florida Legal Guide, 2009 – Present
Prior Cases
- Jury Verdict Award in 2019 in a Wrongful Death Crash in federal court in the amount of $5,000,000.00.
- Jury Verdict Award in 2015 in a Survivor Automobile Crash Case in the amount of $6,160,546.04
- Jury Verdict Award in 2015 in a Survivor Case Medical Malpractice Case in the amount of $8,540,786.90 – Ranked as #1 trial of 2015 by Courtroom View Network
- Jury Verdict Award in 2013 in a Wrongful Death Case in the amount of $12,065,000.00
- Jury Verdict Award in 2007 in a Misfill Prescription Case in the amount of $25,850,583.77
- Jury Verdict Award in 2004 in a Medical Malpractice Case in the amount of $2,386,026.99
- Jury Verdict Award in 2002 in an Automobile Crash Case in the amount of $1,038,000.00
- Jury Verdict Award in 1996 in a Medical Malpractice Case in the amount of $1,854,661.00
- Jury Verdict Award in 2021 in a Medical Malpractice Case in the amount of $2,445,000.00