Top New York Personal Injury Settlements
The largest personal injury settlements in New York for one client or family, ranked by amount. Each links to the full story, the firm, and the record behind the number.
Browse personal injury lawyers in New York →- $44 millionSettlementWorkplace Injury
Construction Worker Left Without Oxygen for 20 Minutes After Debris Chute Collapse Wins $44 Million Settlement
Arian Hila, 48, suffered catastrophic traumatic brain injury at a Tappan, New York demolition site in February 2018 when a debris chute broke free and crushed him, leaving him without oxygen for nearly 20 minutes; a $44 million settlement was reached seven days into a 2024 jury trial.
Brandon J. Broderick, Personal Injury Attorney at Law2024 · New York State Supreme Court, Rockland County (New City, NY); Justice Sherri EisenpressRead the full story → - $35.6 millionSettlementMedical Malpractice
$35.6 Million Settlement for Teen Brain-Damaged After Westchester Medical Center Failed to Treat Fracture
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.
Kramer Dillof Livingston & Moore2024 · New York (Westchester County Healthcare Corp.)Read the full story → - $27.5 millionSettlementSexual Abuse
Record $27.5 Million From the Diocese of Brooklyn for Four Boys a Church Failed to Protect
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.
Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf2018 · Kings County (Brooklyn), NYRead the full story → - $12 millionSettlementPaidCivil Rights
City of Rochester Settles Daniel Prude Wrongful Death Suit for $12 Million
Daniel Prude, a 41-year-old Rochester man in the middle of a mental health crisis, died in March 2020 after police officers put a spit hood over his head and held him face down on the pavement until he stopped breathing. The medical examiner ruled the death a homicide from asphyxia during restraint, though a state grand jury declined to indict the officers. Elliot D. Shields of Roth & Roth, LLP filed the family's federal civil rights suit against the City of Rochester in September 2020. On October 6, 2022, a federal judge approved a $12 million settlement, split evenly between pain-and-suffering and wrongful death claims, with the city admitting no liability.
After trial: Settlement approved by a federal judge on October 6, 2022 and funded by the City of Rochester, which denied liability. Because the case ended in a settlement, there was no judgment to appeal.
Roth & Roth, LLP2022 · U.S. District Court for the Western District of New YorkRead the full story → - $9.9 millionSettlementWorkplace Injury
Union Laborer's Ten-Foot Fall From a Rolling Scaffold Settles for $9.9 Million
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.
- $7.5 millionSettlementPremises Liability
Court Enforces $7.5 Million Settlement for Man Shot in Manhattan Building Stairwell
On March 23, 1987, a man was shot in the head during an attempted robbery near a subway staircase off the vestibule of the former Gimbel's building in Manhattan and suffered severe brain damage. A guardian ad litem sued the building's owner on his behalf. After the owner agreed at a settlement meeting in November 1994 to pay $7.5 million and then disputed that the deal was final, the federal court enforced it by judgment in February 1995. The Second Circuit affirmed in January 1996.
After trial: SZS appealed the judgment enforcing the settlement and the Port Authority parties cross-appealed the indemnity ruling, and the Second Circuit affirmed both on Jan. 12, 1996.
Levy Konigsberg LLP1995 · U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Manhattan (judgment entered Feb. 23, 1995; affirmed by the Second Circuit, Jan. 12, 1996)Read the full story → - $6 millionSettlementWorkplace Injury
$6 Million Settlement After a Tower Crane Ladder Fall in Manhattan: Stallone v. Plaza Construction
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.
The Perecman Firm, P.L.L.C.2013 · New York County (Manhattan) Supreme Court, NYRead the full story → - $5.3 millionSettlementSlip & Fall
$5.3 Million Settlement for Woman Needing Multiple Spinal Surgeries After Grease Spill at LAVO Restaurant
A woman who slipped on grease in a common area shared by her employer and LAVO, a nightclub-restaurant then owned by a Madison Square Garden Entertainment subsidiary, suffered neck and back injuries requiring multiple surgeries and settled her case for $5.3 million in 2023.
- $5 millionSettlementPremises Liability
$5 Million Settlement: Infant Lead Poisoning in Foster Care Home
A foster care agency placed a one-year-old child in a Brooklyn home with documented lead paint, left him there through a full home renovation while his blood lead level climbed to nearly eleven times the CDC danger threshold, and a $5 million settlement followed.
- $4.75 millionSettlementCivil Rights
Fernando Bermudez Wins $4.75 Million State Settlement After 18 Years of Wrongful Imprisonment
Michael Lamonsoff secured a $4.75 million settlement from New York State for Fernando Bermudez, who served 18 years in prison after a 1992 murder conviction built on coerced eyewitness identifications that five witnesses later recanted.
- $4.65 millionSettlementCivil Rights
$4.65 Million Settlement After West Seneca Police Shot Unarmed Buffalo Man Behind the Ear
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.
- $3.75 millionSettlementPremises Liability
$3.75 Million Settlement: Child Lead Poisoning from Landlord and Contractor Negligence in the Bronx
A Bronx boy suffered severe, lasting cognitive damage from lead poisoning after his landlord repeatedly sent an uncertified maintenance worker to cover chipping lead paint; the firm exposed the paperwork fraud and recovered $3.75 million.
- $3.38 millionSettlementWorkplace Injury
$3.375 Million Settlement: Painting Foreman Falls 12 Feet from Defective Ladder at Manhattan High-Rise
A 42-year-old union painting foreman fell roughly 12 feet after being directed to climb the top half of a broken extension ladder at a 56-story Manhattan construction site, suffering spinal fractures and ultimately two surgeries.
- $3 millionSettlementPaidMedical Malpractice
Family of Journalist Who Died Hours After Childbirth Settles Harlem Hospital Malpractice Case for $3 Million
Amy Lam, a 34-year-old journalist, died roughly 11 hours after giving birth at home in West Harlem on August 1, 2016, after she was taken to Harlem Hospital Center because her placenta had not been expelled. At least five physicians treated her over about 10 hours, she received more than 20 blood transfusions, and her aorta dissected and ruptured in the operating room, leaving her with no blood volume. Her family, represented by medical malpractice attorney Susan Karten, sued in 2017, naming Harlem Hospital, New York City Health + Hospitals and five physicians, including Dr. Thomas J. Byrne, who performed a hysterectomy on Lam in the hours before her death. Attorneys for the hospital wrote in court records that what happened to her was a rare and unforeseeable lethal event, while Karten and her experts argued that her life could have been saved had the doctors moved sooner to find the source of the bleeding. The case settled for $3 million in 2020, with New York City Health + Hospitals as the only settling defendant.
After trial: Settled in 2020 for $3 million, paid by New York City Health + Hospitals, with no trial and no appeal. The individual physicians named in the complaint were not part of the settlement.
Susan M. Karten & Associates, LLP2020 · New York State Supreme Court, New York City, NYRead the full story → - $2.9 millionSettlementCivil Rights
Buffalo Man Left With Brain Injury After 2017 Arrest Wins $2.9 Million From City, Cinema Operator and Ambulance Company
Noah Giusiana was arrested in Buffalo in June 2017 after an off-duty police officer working security at a movie theater took him to the pavement. A brain bleed went unrecognized while he was held in a police cell, and he needed emergency surgery. In 2023 he settled his claims against the City of Buffalo and the other defendants for $2.9 million combined.
After trial: The case settled in 2023 after the Fourth Department affirmed denial of the City's and the ambulance company's dispositive motions. Reports differ slightly on the City's share ($1 million or $1.05 million) and the terms are otherwise not public.
- $2.75 millionSettlementSlip & Fall
$2.75 Million Settlement for Building Porter Who Fell 14 Feet Through Unmarked Floor Hole
A Manhattan building porter fell 14 feet through an unguarded third-floor hole after a general contractor's superintendent removed the only cover and left without any warning, resulting in three spinal surgeries and a $2.75 million settlement.
- $2.7 millionSettlementPremises Liability
$2.7 Million Settlement for Brooklyn Child Poisoned by Lead Paint in NYCHA Apartments
After eight years of litigation, the firm defeated NYCHA's summary judgment motion and secured a $2.7 million structured settlement for a child whose blood lead level reached nearly ten times the CDC reference level.
- $2.6 millionSettlementWorkplace Injury
$2.6 Million Settlement for HVAC Worker Struck by Falling Ceiling Panel
A 40-year-old HVAC subcontractor was struck in the back of the head by an unsecured decorative ceiling panel on the 24th floor of a Lower Manhattan high-rise during a renovation, resulting in a $2.6 million settlement after the firm won summary judgment under New York Labor Law Section 240(1).
- $2.5 millionSettlementProduct Liability
Brain-Damaged Toddler's Family Wins $2.5 Million Settlement Against Fisher-Price Over Choking Figurine
Swartz and Swartz secured a $2.5 million settlement in 1987 for a Canadian family whose infant son suffered permanent brain damage after choking on a Fisher-Price Little People figurine in 1971.
- $2.47 millionSettlementWorkplace Injury
$2.474 Million Settlement: Construction Worker Shocked by Live Electrical Conduit
A 43-year-old construction worker suffered nerve damage and two lumbar surgeries after his drill struck a live conduit in a parking garage where his foreman had assured the crew the power was off.
All New York verdicts and settlements
123 results, largest first
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.
Anapol Weiss shareholder Kristen Gibbons Feden helped secure $1.6 billion in default verdicts for 104 women sexually abused as children by former Long Island pediatrician Stuart Copperman, one of the largest cumulative civil awards against a single individual in U.S. history.
Hunter Shkolnik of Napoli Shkolnik represented Nassau County in negotiations that produced a $1.1 billion settlement with McKesson, Cardinal Health, and AmerisourceBergen, the three largest prescription drug distributors in the United States.
Paul Napoli served as court-appointed co-liaison counsel for nearly 10,000 firefighters, police officers, and construction workers who developed respiratory diseases after working at Ground Zero, securing a settlement worth up to $712.5 million against the city and its contractors.
A Manhattan jury found in May 2019 that asbestos in Johnson's Baby Powder and Shower to Shower caused Donna Olson's pleural mesothelioma, awarding $25 million in compensatory damages and $300 million in punitive damages, the largest talc verdict in New York history. Jerome H. Block of Levy Konigsberg tried the case. The trial court cut the award to $120 million in November 2020, and on July 19, 2022 the Appellate Division, First Department reversed outright and directed judgment for Johnson & Johnson, holding that the plaintiffs' medical expert never gave a scientific expression of the minimum lifetime exposure needed to cause the disease.
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.
A Suffolk County jury awarded $130 million to a girl who developed cerebral palsy after oxygen deprivation during her 2002 delivery at St. Charles Hospital, after Thomas A. Moore of Kramer, Dillof, Livingston & Moore tried the case three times; appellate review later cut the pain and suffering award to $4.25 million, and the firm reports the case resolved for $13.6 million in cash plus lifetime Medical Indemnity Fund coverage.
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 New York County jury awarded $117 million to William Durbec and his wife Victoria in May 2025, the largest single-plaintiff asbestos verdict in New York State history, after Durbec developed pleural mesothelioma from asbestos-containing fireproofing he breathed during years of sheet metal work at the original World Trade Center.
In an opinion dated May 7, 2003, Judge Harold Baer of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York entered a default judgment of approximately $104 million against the Republic of Iraq, al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, the Taliban and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in consolidated wrongful death suits brought for two men killed in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. James E. Beasley of The Beasley Firm represented the estates of George Eric Smith, who worked in the South Tower, and Timothy Soulas, who worked in the North Tower; the Second Circuit's opinion in the collection appeal names him as counsel of record. None of the defendants appeared, so the court held a two day inquest on damages, found on expert testimony that Iraq had provided material support to al Qaeda, and held Iraq responsible for approximately $63.5 million of the total. The opinion itemizes the award by estate, by component and by defendant, and no source states a single total for either estate. Two collection efforts have failed, the last of them in the Second Circuit in August 2025, and no source found shows the judgment was ever paid.
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 Nassau County jury awarded $96,906,004 to a woman who suffered catastrophic brain injuries at age 15 at an intersection the county had been warned about for years, making it the second-largest verdict in Nassau County history.
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.
A Brooklyn federal jury awarded $81.7 million to Luisa Janssen Harger Da Silva, a Brazilian student who fainted onto the tracks at the Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center station in 2016 and lost her left arm and left leg, in the first US verdict holding a transit system liable for failing to install platform barriers, but the money is far from paid: the MTA says it will appeal, and its fully briefed motions to throw out the verdict entirely or order a new trial are still pending before Judge Frederic Block.
On September 28, 2017, a Manhattan jury awarded Morgan Wang $71 million against Neil Sexton, the driver who fell asleep at the wheel on state Route 79 in August 2012 on the way to Cornell University. Wang, a passenger, suffered a fractured back and a spinal cord injury. The award was $5 million for past pain and suffering, $6 million for future pain and suffering and $60 million for future medical care.
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 $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.
A Queens County jury awarded Zeng Guang Lin, an immigrant construction worker who was 20 when he fell 20 feet from a roof at a Bronx job site, $62,060,086.27 on December 17, 2014 after finding property owner Hutch Realty Partners LLC and contractor Gamut Consulting Inc. liable under New York Labor Law for failing to provide him fall protection. Lin suffered a traumatic brain injury along with spinal fractures, rib fractures, a lacerated spleen, a renal hematoma, and lung contusions. Hutch Realty filed post-trial motions and appealed, and while both were pending the case settled for $6,000,000, against a judgment the defense firm on the appeal puts at $68 million. Benedict Morelli tried the case for Lin; trade-press coverage at the time identified his firm as the Morelli, Alters and Ratner Law Firm, the practice known today as Morelli Law Firm PLLC.
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.
M. Anderson Berry of Arnold Law Firm was among plaintiffs' counsel in a $60 million class action settlement against Morgan Stanley Smith Barney arising from two separate failures to secure customer data on decommissioned IT equipment, affecting approximately 15 million current and former clients.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.