time – take on powerful corporate interests on behalf of consumers and hard-working employees, or “the little man” as others have described. Founded on the principle of “helping those who need it most,” the firm was established to provide legal service to both individuals and businesses who have been wronged by no act of their own. That principle still serves as the bedrock for the firm's work. The firm, which is known today as Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C., has grown to more than 85 attorneys in Atlanta, Georgia; Dallas, Texas; Mobile, Alabama; and Montgomery, Alabama and more than 200 support staff including full-time nurses, investigators, computer specialists, technologists, a marketing department, and a comprehensive trial graphics team. On Jan. 7, 2019, Beasley Allen celebrated its 40th anniversary. Beasley is noted as a trial lawyer, and his firm has a national reputation for winning major awards for its clients. Notable cases Beasley's law firm has handed the following major cases: September 1993 – Tractor and heavy equipment manufacturer Kubota agreed to pay the family of 67-year-old retired farmer Durwood Spivey $10 million after the B-7100 Kubota tractor he was riding overturned, crushing him under the 2,500-pound weight of the machine. Kubota had not equipped the tractor with a rollover protection structure, despite such protection being available to the tractor industry since the 1950s. November 2003 – A Montgomery County jury ordered Exxon Mobil Corporation to pay the State of Alabama a record $11.8 billion in punitive damages as well as an additional $103 million in compensatory damages for intentionally and willfully underpaying royalties on natural gas from the Mobile Bay field. Exxon appealed and gained a reduction in the award to $3.6 billion. November 2007 – Pharmaceutical company Merck & Co announced it would pay $4.85 billion to resolve claims that its anti-inflammatory drug Vioxx caused heart attacks, strokes and sudden cardiac death. The Vioxx settlement remains the largest pharmaceutical settlement in history. October 2013 – An Oklahoma City jury ordered Toyota Motor Corp. to pay Jean Bookout and the family of deceased passenger Barbara Schwartz $3 million in compensatory damages and an additional $1.5 million in punitive damages over claims that an electronic defect in Bookout's 2005 Camry caused it to accelerate unintentionally and crash, seriously injuring Bookout and killing Schwartz. July 2015 - Beasley Allen represented the State of Alabama in a landmark agreement in