About Vito Cannavo

Vito A. Cannavo brings corporate and municipal litigation experience to complement trial skills developed across all of the firm's practice areas. Before joining Sullivan Papain, he clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Mark Costantino, worked as a litigation associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, and served as a trial attorney at the New York City Law Department Office of the Corporation Counsel. He joined the firm in 1988 and became a member in 1992. He now leads one of the firm's General Negligence departments and has earned multi-million-dollar verdicts and settlements in medical malpractice, premises liability, motor vehicle, and firefighter-related litigation. He is recognized in The Best Lawyers in America, Super Lawyers, and holds an AV rating from Martindale-Hubbell.

Proven verdicts and settlements

$29.5 million (settled September 2016 rather than risk appellate reduction; $183 million gross verdict)Verdict

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.

Bronx Supreme Court, New York · 2016Wrongful DeathRead the full story →
View all 3 proven verdicts →

Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.

Practice areas

Education

Cornell Law School
J.D., 1978

Bar admissions & credentials

State Bar of New York

Other attorneys at Sullivan Papain Block McManus Coffinas & Cannavo

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Proven verdicts and settlements from other New York firms

Levy Konigsberg LLP
Levy Konigsberg LLP
$325 million verdict ($25 million compensatory plus $300 million punitive; reduced to $120 million by the trial court in November 2020; reversed and judgment entered for Johnson & Johnson in July 2022) · $325 Million Talc Mesothelioma Verdict Against Johnson & Johnson, Cut to $120 Million and Then Reversed on Causation
Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf
Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf
$272.5 million · $272.5 Million for the Victims of the Tribeca Crane Collapse
Kramer Dillof Livingston & Moore
Kramer Dillof Livingston & Moore
$172 million · $172 Million Bronx Verdict After EMTs Arrived Without Oxygen or Defibrillator and Told Family to Wait
Weitz & Luxenberg
Weitz & Luxenberg
$10.9 billion · Weitz and Luxenberg Helps Win $10.9 Billion Roundup Settlement for 125,000 Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma Claimants
The Perecman Firm, P.L.L.C.
The Perecman Firm, P.L.L.C.
$9.9 million · Union Laborer's Ten-Foot Fall From a Rolling Scaffold Settles for $9.9 Million