New York’s Leading Lawyers

Morelli Law Firm

Personal Injury, Discrimination, Civil Litigation, Medical Malpractice

Morelli Law Firm

When it comes to high-stakes litigation, preeminent trial lawyer Benedict Morelli is in rare company. With a continuous stream of precedent-setting, multimilliondollar verdicts – across a wide array of practice areas – Morelli continues to assert himself as a power litigator in cases ranging from workplace sexual harassment to catastrophic personal injury to defective drugs and medical devices. He has represented numerous high profile clients including Tracy Morgan, tennis star Eugenie Bouchard, and Andrea Mackris, a former Fox producer who sued Bill O’Reilly for sexual harassment.

“The diversity in our practice is unique for a firm of our size,” Morelli says. “We’re not a run-of-the-mill firm where we do the same medical malpractice cases and the same personal injury casesmany of the matters that come to us are high-value, prominent cases, and that’s because we offer the expertise and experience of a larger law firm in a smaller environment where each case receives our full attention.”

Among his most high-profile results, Morelli achieved a landmark, confidential settlement with Wal-Mart on behalf of Tracy Morgan and five other plaintiffs in the accident that was secured in just 10 months, with Wal-Mart taking full responsibility for its truck hitting Morgan’s limousine. He also secured a $40 million medical malpractice verdict that was featured in the National Law Journal as one of the top 10 verdicts in the United States. In 2010, as counsel in a polio vaccine case in Staten Island, he secured a $22.5 million verdict that remains the largest vaccine verdict in U.S. history. And, in 2011, Morelli obtained a $95 million verdict in a sexual harassment trial in the Southern District of Illinois Federal Court, which stands as the largest single-plaintiff sexual harassment verdict in U.S. history.

Most recently, Morelli secured a $62 million verdict for a 26-year-old construction worker who was injured on the job after falling 20 feet from a roof. The result, which followed a six-month trial, is believed to be the largest personal injury verdict for a single plaintiff in the history of the Queens County Supreme Court. Morelli’s other settlements, which are often confidential, have also been record breaking, both in terms of their sizeable amounts and speedy resolutions.

Morelli played a leading role in the May 2015 Amtrak train derailment litigation, in which he was appointed by the federal judge in charge of the entire litigation to serve on the Plaintiff’s Management Committee. He was integral in getting the federal damages cap raised and settling the case for $265 million, which was the largest railroad accident settlement in U.S. history. Morelli and his firm have also been involved in many large-scale pharmaceutical casesoften in a leadership capacityincluding suits against the manufacturers of Vioxx, Avandia, Bextra, IVC filter and talcum powder. He currently represents more than 1,000 women in cases against Johnson & Johnson alleging that their use of the company’s talcum powder caused them ovarian cancer.

“I’ve been trying cases for years now, and I’ve never been afraid of going up against powerful opponents,” says Morelli, who is also a past president of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association and a long-time AV Preeminent® rated attorney by Martindale- Hubbell®. “By standing up for the little guy we’ve been able to secure more than $1 billion in verdicts and settlements for our clients, and those numbers only continue to grow.”