Paralyzed Teen's Malpractice Verdict of $45.6 Million Cut to $9.2 Million, Then Reported Settled Before Appeal
After trial: The $45,625,000 jury verdict ($40,000,000 for pain and suffering, $5,625,000 economic) was reduced by the trial court on the defendants' post-trial motion to a combined $9,242,000 ($9,117,000 pain and suffering, $125,000 economic), in an amended order entered on or about May 18, 2017. Both plaintiffs and defendants then appealed and cross-appealed. In September 2018 the plaintiffs and the hospital defendants jointly moved in the Appellate Division, First Department for an enlargement of time to perfect the appeal and cross appeal, and the surgeon defendants cross-moved; the text of that order available to us does not say how the court ruled. Before either appeal was perfected, the case appears to have settled; two unaffiliated attorney blogs report $10,900,000 in late 2018. Because that figure has no news or court source, the row ranks at the $9,242,000 reduced judgment, with the full verdict recorded in awarded_amount_value. We could not locate a news account, court record or verdict reporter entry for the settlement itself, only two unaffiliated attorney blog posts that independently report the same $10,900,000 figure; the underlying verdict, its breakdown, and the pending cross-appeals are independently confirmed by a contemporaneous news report and the Appellate Division's own order.
Won by Torgan Cooper + Aaron, P.C..
In November 2002, 14-year-old Edward Beloyianis underwent surgery at a Manhattan hospital, then part of Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, to correct severe scoliosis, and came out of it paralyzed from the waist down after four screws meant to anchor the correction were misplaced and left pressing against his spinal cord. Beloyianis and his parents sued the hospital and the surgeon, alleging the surgical team never performed the CT scan that would have caught the misplaced hardware in time to reverse the damage. Beloyianis died in 2010 at age 22 from complications tied to the paralysis, and in May 2015 a Bronx jury awarded his parents $45,625,000, splitting fault evenly between the hospital and the surgeon. The trial court later cut the award to $9,242,000 on the defendants' post-trial motion. Both sides appealed, and two unaffiliated attorney blogs report that the case settled for $10,900,000 in late 2018 before the appeals were perfected, a figure that no news account or court record confirms.
What happened
In November 2002, Edward Beloyianis, then 14 years old and living with his family in Dix Hills, Long Island, went to a Manhattan hospital, part of what was then Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, for surgery to correct a severe, long-standing case of scoliosis. During the operation, four screws meant to anchor the correction were misplaced, and they ended up pressing against his spinal cord.
Beloyianis came out of surgery unable to move his legs. His family later said the hospital told them he had suffered a stroke during the procedure and that a CT scan had ruled out any injury to his spinal cord. According to the lawsuit that followed, no such scan was ever performed. An intra-operative CT scan would have shown the misplaced screws, giving doctors a chance to reposition them before the damage became permanent. Instead, the injury went undiagnosed until it was irreversible, and Beloyianis was left paraplegic for the rest of his life.
He lived another eight years, cared for by his parents, before he died in 2010 at age 22 of complications tied to the paralysis. His parents, Michael Beloyianis and Virginia Beaton, pursued the malpractice claim against the hospital and the surgeon who performed the operation.
The case went to trial in Supreme Court, Bronx County, with Evan Torgan representing the family. On May 27, 2015, after three days of deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of $45,625,000: $40,000,000 for Edward's pain and suffering and $5,625,000 in economic damages. Jurors divided fault for the surgical errors evenly between the surgeon and the hospital.
The hospital and the surgeon moved to set aside the verdict. The trial court denied the motion to overturn the liability finding but agreed the damages were excessive, and in an amended order entered in 2017 cut the pain and suffering award to $9,117,000 and the economic damages to $125,000, a combined $9,242,000. Both sides appealed. In September 2018, the family and the hospital defendants jointly asked the Appellate Division, First Department for more time to perfect the appeal and cross appeal, and the surgeon's side cross-moved. The text of that order available to us does not say how the court ruled on those requests.
Before either appeal was perfected, the case appears to have settled. Two unaffiliated attorney blogs report a $10,900,000 settlement in late 2018 that closed the case without appellate review of the reduced award; no news account, court record or verdict reporter confirms that figure, so the $9,242,000 judgment the court entered is the last independently documented number and is the one ranked here.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Fierce Healthcare (citing the New York Times), May 2015: reports the Bronx jury's $45.6 million verdict against NewYork-Presbyterian and the surgeon, split evenly between them, names Evan Torgan as the family's lawyer, and reports the hospital's stated intent to appeal
- 2.Leagle.com, Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, First Department, Beloyianis v. The New York and Presbyterian Hospital, 2018 NY Slip Op 83203(U) (decided Sept. 13, 2018), court record: confirms the case caption and Bronx County index number 14121/04, that appeals and a cross appeal had been taken from the amended order of Supreme Court, Bronx County entered on or about May 18, 2017, and that in September 2018 plaintiffs and the hospital defendants jointly moved for an enlargement of time to perfect the appeal and cross appeal (M-3852), with the surgeon defendants cross-moving
- 3.New York Injury Cases Blog (John Hochfelder, an attorney's damages blog unaffiliated with the firm; corroborating detail only), April 2019: reports the trial court's breakdown of the reduced damages, $9,117,000 for pain and suffering and $125,000 in economic damages, and that the case settled for $10,900,000 in late 2018
- 4.RMFW Law (an unaffiliated personal injury firm's blog; corroborating detail only): independently reports the same figure, that the case finally settled for $10,900,000 in 2018, before an appeal was perfected
More proven verdicts from Torgan Cooper + Aaron, P.C.
All Torgan Cooper + Aaron, P.C. proven verdicts →A Manhattan jury awarded $72.5 million on February 22, 2024 to Aurora Beauchamp, a stage 4 cancer patient who was struck in a Lower East Side crosswalk by an MTA bus and dragged roughly 20 feet before it came to rest on her legs, crushing her pelvis and paralyzing her left leg, in what was widely reported as potentially the largest pedestrian knockdown verdict against the MTA. The money has not been paid: the transit defendants appealed after judgment was entered in May 2025, the Appellate Division denied the Beauchamps' bid to fast-track the briefing in December 2025, and the appeal remains pending.
A Rockland County, New York jury found two neurosurgeons at fault after a 2009 cervical spine operation left their patient, Patricia Jones, a quadriplegic, and in 2019 returned a verdict the trial court itemized at approximately $45.9 million, on top of $11.8 million her family had already recovered from defendants who settled before trial. The jury found that a spinal cord injury developing after the surgery went unrecognized and untreated until it was too late, and it apportioned 25 percent of the fault to each of the two doctors who stood trial. In a July 2023 order the court held the pain and suffering and loss of consortium awards excessive under New York law and reduced them, bringing the award as reduced to about $23.4 million, conditioned on the family accepting the cut or trying damages again. Evan Torgan of Torgan Cooper + Aaron is named in the decision as counsel for the family.
In October 2003, James McMillan was one of roughly 1,500 passengers on the Staten Island Ferry Andrew J. Barberi when it hit a maintenance pier at close to full speed after its solo pilot blacked out, a crash that killed 11 people and left McMillan a quadriplegic. Liability was already settled by the time his case reached trial, so Judge Jack B. Weinstein tried damages in the Eastern District of New York with an advisory jury, with Torgan & Cooper, P.C. (now Torgan Cooper + Aaron) representing McMillan. The City argued his future medical costs should be figured on race-based life expectancy statistics predicting a shorter life for a Black claimant; Weinstein refused, in the first federal ruling to hold that such statistics cannot be used to calculate damages. His own findings of fact, amended twice, fixed the award at $18.3 million, the largest of the cases brought against the City over the crash, and the City paid it.
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