$14.1 Million Jury Verdict for New York Pedestrian With Traumatic Brain Injury

Ferida Kasnecovic was on foot in New York City when a vehicle driven by Faige Lamm struck her. The impact caused a traumatic brain injury, a category of harm that can reshape every dimension of a person's life.

TBI survivors often face deficits invisible to casual observation but pervasive in daily function. Cognitive disruption, gaps in memory, difficulty regulating mood, and impaired executive function can block a return to work and strain relationships for years. When those effects are combined with the cost of neurological care, rehabilitation, and long-term support, the projected lifetime losses in a serious TBI case can reach eight figures. That is the territory this litigation occupied.

The case went to trial in New York. Personal-injury defense in pedestrian crash cases often contests causation, challenges the severity of reported symptoms, or disputes the causal link between the collision and specific medical findings. Taking those arguments apart before a jury requires expert testimony in neurology and neuropsychology, documentation of past and projected medical costs, and lay accounts of how the plaintiff's daily life changed after the crash.

Andrew G. Meier of Rosenbaum and Rosenbaum, P.C. tried the case. After hearing the evidence, the jury returned a verdict of $14.1 million for Kasnecovic.

TopVerdict, an editorial verdict-reporting service, ranked the result 21st among all verdicts of any type in New York in 2024 and 15th among personal-injury verdicts statewide. The same publisher listed it 56th among all motor-vehicle accident verdicts in the United States for 2024, placing it in a group of fewer than 60 reported outcomes from thousands of such cases filed nationally that year.

No reduction or remittitur of the jury's award appears in publicly available sources reviewed for this piece.