Largest verdicts in New York

Sullivan Papain was among the firms representing New York State against Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, and Lorillard, securing a $25 billion recovery through the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement.

Sullivan Papain served as court-appointed co-liaison counsel in the World Trade Center Disaster Site Litigation, helping secure a settlement of more than $712 million for roughly 10,000 police officers, firefighters, and construction workers who developed serious respiratory and other illnesses after working in the toxic ruins of the World Trade Center.

A 565-foot crawler crane toppled across a Tribeca street in 2016, killing a young mathematician; the case settled for $272.5 million.

A Bronx jury in February 2016 awarded $183 million to five FDNY firefighters and the families of those killed after the city was found 80% liable for removing personal safety ropes years before a 2005 Bronx tenement fire that forced six firefighters to jump from a fourth-floor window.

After a Westchester jury found Metro-North 71% at fault for the 2015 Valhalla grade-crossing disaster, a settlement exceeding $182 million resolved the claims of roughly 30 victims and their families.

Thomas Moore won a $172 million jury verdict in Bronx Supreme Court for a woman left with catastrophic brain damage after FDNY EMTs responded to her 1998 cardiac arrest without essential equipment and advised her family to wait for a second ambulance instead of transporting her immediately.

After on-call residents missed a stroke on a CT scan and delayed lifesaving treatment for hours, Gair Gair Conason won a $120 million verdict against Westchester Medical Center for William Lee, the largest medical-malpractice award in the county's history.

A Bronx jury awarded $120 million to Jacqueline Martin, a 45-year-old mother who suffered permanent brain damage after three New York City hospitals repeatedly failed to recognize and treat a severe allergic reaction to seizure medication that triggered Stevens-Johnson Syndrome.

A Brooklyn jury found the NYC Transit Authority fully at fault after a track crew dropped a railroad tie onto cyclist Robert Liciaga, severing his spine, and returned $110,174,972.38.

An Erie County jury awarded $100 million to a woman sexually abused over four years beginning at age 12, the largest Child Victims Act verdict in New York State history.

A Wayne County jury awarded $96 million to the widow of a New Jersey father and his college-baseball-star son, both killed when a Challenger Motor Freight semi rear-ended their SUV in a Detroit-area construction zone while the driver was on three Parkinson's disease medications that warned against operating heavy equipment.

A Monroe County jury ordered former Rochester Catholic priest Foster Rogers to pay $95 million to a man he sexually assaulted in 1979, when the victim was 15 years old, in one of the largest Child Victims Act verdicts in New York history.

A Manhattan jury awarded $85 million to a writer and former New York Times columnist who was severely injured by a double-decker sightseeing bus while lawfully crossing the street.

An Erie County jury awarded $65 million to a woman who was sexually abused over seven years as a child by former Buffalo YMCA counselor James B. Jackson, in one of the largest verdicts under New York's Child Victims Act.

After a routine lumbar epidural steroid injection left a Long Island man permanently paralyzed, Gair Gair Conason won a $60 million verdict for the client of attorney Marijo C. Adimey. It is believed to be the largest medical-malpractice award in Nassau County history.

After a methanol "rainbow" demonstration erupted into a fireball and burned 16-year-old Alonzo Yanes over more than 30 percent of his body, Gair Gair Conason won a $59.17 million verdict against the New York City Department of Education and his chemistry teacher.

A Brooklyn jury found general contractor Mecca Contracting failed to protect Alan Moonsammy from a fall that left him paralyzed and awarded him $53.5 million.

When a shunt revision at New York Hospital failed and went unaddressed in 1990, Samuel Desiderio suffered catastrophic brain damage; a jury awarded roughly $50 million and New York's highest court upheld the structured judgment in full.

A Kings County jury awarded about $48 million to a Polish immigrant carpenter who was rendered quadriplegic when a temporary wooden staircase gave way at a Brooklyn renovation site, finding the building owner and general contractor liable under New York Labor Law. The trial court later conditioned the pain and suffering portion on a reduction.

A Manhattan jury awarded $45.2 million to Marion Hedges, who suffered permanent brain damage after two boys threw a shopping cart from a fourth-floor walkway onto her head at East River Plaza mall in East Harlem on October 30, 2011.

A Queens jury awarded $41.5 million to the widow and four children of Steven Frosch, a 43-year-old New York City sanitation worker crushed between two street sweepers inside a Maspeth garage.

A Kings County jury awarded $40,876,000 to Matthew Falcone Jr., who suffered a traumatic brain injury, facial fractures, and permanent left-side paralysis after a Verizon New York truck struck him at a Brooklyn intersection in 2006.

A Boston jury returned a $39 million verdict against talc supplier Cimbar Performance Minerals after finding that asbestos-contaminated talc used in a 2014 chest procedure caused Bryce Zundel's mesothelioma seven years later, marking the first trial anywhere to connect the common pleurodesis technique to asbestos disease.

Kramer Dillof Livingston and Moore secured a $35.6 million pre-verdict settlement, the highest in New York State history at the time, for a teenager who suffered catastrophic brain damage after Westchester Medical Center failed to treat frontal sinus fractures sustained in a scooter collision.

A Manhattan jury found building owner 271 Madison Co. 100% liable and awarded $35.15 million to Meghan Brown, a former JPMorgan analyst who suffered a traumatic brain injury when a glass lobby door at 271 Madison Avenue shattered on her in February 2015.

A Richland County jury unanimously awarded $32 million, including $10 million in punitive damages against Kraft Heinz, after finding that secondhand asbestos fibers carried home on work clothes caused Kathy Weist's fatal mesothelioma diagnosis.

An Erie County jury awarded $30 million to a man who was sexually abused as a child by Rev. Douglas D. Thore, a Lutheran pastor in Marilla, NY, in what was reported as the largest Child Victims Act verdict in Western New York at the time.

A New York jury awarded $28.5 million to retired Local 638 steamfitter James Petro Sr. after finding that his lung cancer was caused by asbestos exposure during the original construction of the World Trade Center, though the verdict was later vacated and a new trial ordered on apportionment.

Gair Gair Conason secured a $27.5 million settlement from the Diocese of Brooklyn for four boys abused by a parish religion teacher, reported as the largest individual Catholic Church sexual-abuse payout on record at the time.

After a New York City Transit Authority bus struck and dragged Gloria Aguilar in Manhattan, costing her a leg, Gair Gair Conason won her a $27.5 million verdict, later cut to roughly $18 million on appeal.

An Erie County jury awarded $25 million to a man sexually abused by his Boy Scout troop leader in Cheektowaga during the early 1970s, in what presiding Judge Mark Grisanti described as the first jury verdict reached under New York's Child Victims Act.

A New York jury returned a $14.1 million verdict for Ferida Kasnecovic after she suffered a traumatic brain injury when struck as a pedestrian by a vehicle driven by Faige Lamm.

A union laborer fell about ten feet from a scaffold to the sidewalk after the owner and general contractor failed to give him a safe way to climb on and off it, and his back and heel injuries produced a $9.9 million settlement that VerdictSearch and the New York Law Journal ranked as the state's second-largest of 2014.

A Niagara County jury awarded $8.8 million to a 16-year-old girl whose right arm was severed by a tractor-driven post-hole digger with a defectively designed safety shield, a verdict the New York Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed in April 2014.

A pregnant New York woman at 24 weeks gestation suffered catastrophic, permanent brain damage after her OB/GYN and hospital failed to diagnose and treat an emerging complication, leading to a $6.2 million settlement that ranked among New York's 25 largest civil resolutions of 2017.

David H. Perecman of The Perecman Firm secured a $6 million settlement for a 45-year-old union operating engineer who slipped descending a tower crane's ladder, fell about 14 feet, and tore his left rotator cuff.

A New York County jury unanimously returned a $5.5 million verdict for a Queens woman and her husband after Lenox Hill Hospital staff fractured her pelvis during delivery of a large baby, but the Appellate Division First Department reversed the award in 2013 for insufficient expert proof.

A Monroe County jury unanimously awarded $5.45 million, including $3 million in punitive damages, to a man who was sexually abused as a child by Father Joseph Grasso, principal of Siena Catholic Academy in Brighton, New York.

Town of West Seneca's insurers paid $4.65 million to settle a civil rights lawsuit after police shot unarmed Buffalo man Jeffrey Edwards behind the ear in 2010, leaving him quadriplegic until his death four years later.

The Perecman Firm settled Cardona v. City of New York for $4.2 million after a 23-year-old worker fell from a scaffold, a result the New York Law Journal ranked seventh among 2018's top settlements.

Steven B. Dorfman of The Perecman Firm secured a $3,325,000 settlement for a 54-year-old union cement worker who was seriously injured by a falling piece of plywood at a New York construction site.

A Philadelphia jury found AMC 100 percent at fault after a woman in her late 70s fractured her hip tripping in a darkened movie auditorium in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, awarding $3,146,500 following a five-day trial.

A Local 12A demolition worker crushed by collapsing scaffolding during the teardown at Queens' Aqueduct racetrack recovered $1.5 million in a mediated settlement, a result the New York Law Journal ranked among its top 2020 settlements.

A New York City woman secured a $1.5 million settlement after falling when a Thyssen Dover-maintained elevator misleveled by nearly two feet, trapping her mid-step between the car floor and the landing.

Attorneys Matthew T. Gammons and Jordan J. Nazarzadeh of Rosenbaum and Rosenbaum negotiated a $1.4 million settlement for plaintiffs injured in a 2018 New York motor vehicle collision.

A Kings County jury awarded $1.24 million to a 64-year-old medical massage therapist who fractured both wrists when she tripped and fell outside her Brooklyn apartment building.

A jury awarded $1.2 million in pain and suffering to a retired 69-year-old woman struck by an unmarked Town of Cheektowaga police vehicle as she crossed legally in a crosswalk, with the Fourth Department unanimously affirming the verdict on appeal.

A Kings County jury found the corporate owner of a Brooklyn residential building liable for a dangerous condition and awarded the injured plaintiff $1.1 million.

A 13-year-old's claim against orthopedic surgeons who failed to order adequate tests, misdiagnosed the condition, and applied erroneous treatment settled for $1.1 million in New York in 2019.

A New York jury awarded $850,000 to a plaintiff who was injured in a trip-and-fall on the premises of Montefiore Medical Center, finding the hospital liable for a dangerous condition it failed to correct.

Rosenbaum & Rosenbaum secured a $650,000 settlement for a plaintiff who suffered burn injuries and a partial amputation after a dangerous condition on city-controlled property went uncorrected.

A Queens County jury returned a $100,000 verdict for a plaintiff who sustained a traumatic brain injury and cervical spine injuries when ice fell from The Plaza Condominium's exterior and struck her at a building exit in February 2017.

William Mattar, P.C. won a landmark ruling for a postal carrier bitten by a dog, convincing New York's highest court to abolish the 2006 'Bard v. Jahnke' precedent that had barred negligence claims against domestic animal owners for 19 years.

In Thompson v. Clark, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that a Brooklyn man falsely accused of abusing his newborn daughter could sue NYPD for malicious prosecution, setting a Fourth Amendment precedent that made it easier for wrongly-arrested plaintiffs nationwide to bring civil-rights claims.

Gair Gair Conason represented the family of comedian Joan Rivers in a wrongful-death and medical-malpractice case against the Manhattan clinic where she died after a 2014 throat procedure, resolved in 2016 on confidential terms.