A $160.5 Million Verdict for a Brain Injury at the Cosmopolitan's Marquee Nightclub

In April 2012, David Moradi, a New York hedge fund manager, was a guest at the Marquee nightclub inside The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. He had run up and paid a bill of more than $10,000 that night. According to his lawsuit, a club manager and security officers then forced him into a back room and demanded his identification and credit card. When the encounter escalated, they shoved him to the floor, repeatedly struck him, and pressed his head into the concrete.

Moradi managed a fund of roughly $1 billion and earned about $11 million a year. A Las Vegas neurosurgeon diagnosed him with a traumatic brain injury. In the months that followed he described headaches, disorientation, trouble concentrating, difficulty walking, and anxiety, problems that struck at the high-pressure work his income depended on.

Moradi filed suit in 2014 against the casino's owner, Nevada Property 1 LLC, the Marquee nightclub, and Roof Deck Entertainment LLC. The case went to trial in Clark County District Court in 2017. Rahul Ravipudi of Panish Shea Ravipudi, with co-counsel Paul Padda, told jurors that Moradi was a VIP guest who was "assaulted, battered and falsely imprisoned," and pointed to a culture that put "profits over safety." The defense argued that Moradi had head-butted the manager first, but one juror later said video of the encounter showed no head-butt.

On April 26, 2017, the jury returned $160.5 million in compensatory damages, much of it tied to Moradi's lost past and future earnings. His team then asked the same jury for $483 million in punitive damages. A defense lawyer told the court that the compensatory figure alone would have "financially annihilated" the company.

While the jury was deliberating on punitive damages that Friday, the two sides reached a confidential settlement. The terms were never disclosed, and the agreement resolved the case in place of the $160.5 million verdict.

The damages award itself was not reduced or remitted on appeal. In December 2022, the Nevada Supreme Court affirmed dismissal of a separate subrogation suit among the Cosmopolitan's insurers over who owed what after the payout, a dispute that did not disturb Moradi's recovery.