Hess & Leibowitz, PLLC

On February 13, 2004, a Bronx jury awarded $86,735,134 to Frank Miraglia, a 45 year old construction laborer who fell into a trench when an unsecured plank collapsed under him and was impaled on a steel rebar that severed his spinal cord, leaving him a paraplegic. Steven L. Hess, then of Simonson, Hess & Leibowitz, P.C., was trial counsel; the firm continues today as Hess & Leibowitz, PLLC. The trial judge reduced the award to $25,030,134, and in January 2007 the Appellate Division, First Department trimmed it further, sustaining $5 million for past pain and suffering, conditioning the future pain and suffering award on a reduction from $10 million to $5 million (a reduction Miraglia accepted by stipulation), and cutting future medical expenses to $8,056,222, which left the judgment at just under $20 million.

On October 11, 1985, a nine-year-old boy's foot was trapped where broken comb sections left a gap at the top of an escalator in the Aer Lingus and Lufthansa arrivals area at John F. Kennedy Airport. The escalator kept running after his sneaker caught, and by the time the power was cut and he was freed, his right foot was crushed and permanently damaged. A federal jury found Aer Lingus Irish Airlines and Westinghouse Elevator Company, which maintained the escalator, responsible and returned a $1,250,000 verdict, $1,200,000 for pain and suffering and $50,000 for medical expenses; the claim against Lufthansa German Airlines was tried to the judge, who found that airline negligent as well. The court refused to set the pain and suffering award aside as excessive. Alan B. Leibowitz of the firm's predecessor, Simonson Hess & Leibowitz, P.C., was of counsel for the plaintiff.