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+ details >>Every winter, New Yorkers brace for the inevitable: icy sidewalks in Westchester, wet lobby floors in Manhattan high-rises, crumbling subway platforms in the Bronx.
Slip-and-fall injuries send tens of thousands of people to emergency rooms across the state each year, and the consequences (shattered pelvises, herniated discs, traumatic brain injuries) can be life-altering. Yet winning a premises liability case in New York remains extraordinarily difficult.
Plaintiffs must prove the property owner had actual or constructive notice of the dangerous condition and failed to fix it. The state's comparative negligence rules mean a jury can reduce your award if it decides you were partly at fault. And then there's the "storm in progress" doctrine, which gives property owners a free pass to delay clearing ice and snow while a storm is still underway.
Against this legal backdrop, the attorneys below have each secured major slip-and-fall or premises liability verdicts and settlements in Westchester County and New York City between 2023 and 2025, results that required not just legal skill but the ability to convince skeptical juries that a fall was someone else's fault.
Location: Ossining, NY (Westchester County) Case highlight: $2,021,000 jury verdict, slip and fall at The Jane Hotel, Manhattan (December 2025)
On December 3, 2025, a Manhattan jury deliberated just over two hours before awarding $2,021,000 to a 64-year-old hotel guest who slipped on accumulated water on a marble-tiled floor outside a communal shower at The Jane Hotel in New York City. The fall left the man with multiple pelvic fractures and spinal disc herniations, injuries that, as Weiskopf told the jury, "dramatically altered his daily life, his independence, and his relationship with his wife." The verdict also included a derivative claim on behalf of the plaintiff's spouse for loss of consortium.
Weiskopf, who tried the case without co-counsel, built his argument around a straightforward but powerful premise: the hotel chose aesthetics over safety. He presented evidence that the marble flooring lacked adequate drainage and failed to meet accepted slip-resistance standards for wet environments, a deficiency the hotel knew about, or should have known about, given that water regularly pooled on the surface. "You don't get a pass just because the tile looks good in photos," Weiskopf said after the verdict.
The result earned a nomination for TopVerdict's Top 100 Verdicts in New York for 2025, a nationally recognized ranking of the largest plaintiff jury verdicts statewide. For a solo practitioner based in Westchester County, that recognition places Weiskopf in rare company.
A graduate of the University of Michigan and Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Weiskopf brings nearly 20 years of trial experience to his practice. Before founding his own firm, he served as a Senior Court Attorney in the Civil and Criminal Courts of New York County and later worked in commercial and civil rights litigation. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Law at Cardozo, where he has taught lawyering, legal writing, and remedies since 2018. His career results exceed $20 million in total recoveries for injured clients, including a $3.25 million medical malpractice verdict and a $1.25 million product liability settlement. He is admitted to practice in the Southern, Eastern, and Northern Districts of New York.
Why he tops this list: Weiskopf combined meticulous preparation with courtroom command to secure a seven-figure verdict in a case type, a hotel bathroom slip-and-fall, that many attorneys would hesitate to take to trial. The speed of the jury's deliberation suggests his presentation was overwhelming. His Westchester roots, academic credentials, and growing record of high-value results make him one of the most compelling premises liability attorneys in the region.
Website: weiskopflaw.com
Location: Manhattan, New York City Case highlight: $35+ million jury verdict, shattering glass door, Midtown Manhattan (March 2024)
In March 2024, a Manhattan Supreme Court jury awarded more than $35 million to Meghan Brown, a 36-year-old former JP Morgan analyst who suffered a traumatic brain injury when a 7½-foot glass door at 271 Madison Avenue exploded as she exited the building after a physical therapy appointment. Surveillance footage captured the moment. Brown has lived with impaired cognitive ability, memory loss, light and noise sensitivity, and chronic vertigo ever since. The jury found the building's owner 100% liable and awarded $20 million in future pain and suffering alone, with an additional $13.4 million for future medical needs.
Thomas Moore is, by most measures, one of the most accomplished trial lawyers in the United States. He has won more than 95 trials with verdicts exceeding $1 million, more than any other attorney in the country, according to the National Law Journal, which has named him "Lawyer of the Year" twice. He is a member of the Inner Circle of Advocates, an invitation-only group limited to the top 100 plaintiff trial lawyers in America, and has been listed in Best Lawyers in America for more than 20 consecutive years. His career recoveries exceed $3 billion.
Why he made the list: The $35 million verdict is the largest confirmed premises liability jury award in New York City in the 2023 to 2025 window. Moore's ability to translate a seemingly freak accident, a door shattering, into a clear negligence narrative speaks to decades of elite trial craft.
Website: kdlm.com
Location: New York City (Bronx practice) Case highlight: $22.75 million jury verdict, subway platform trip and fall, Bronx (June 2025)
Maruf Hossain, a 24-year-old Bangladeshi-born bicycle delivery worker, tripped on a chipped, broken section of the subway platform at the Parkchester station in the Bronx on June 5, 2017, and fell onto the tracks as a train pulled in. He lost all five toes on his left foot and suffered a fractured pelvis, dislocated hip, spinal fractures, and head trauma. The MTA claimed Hossain had attempted suicide and offered just $100,000 to settle. Nicholas Liakas took the case to trial in Bronx County Supreme Court and on June 30, 2025, the jury returned a verdict of $22.75 million, $2.75 million more than the $20 million Liakas had originally sought.
The case drew national media coverage from Fox News, Newsweek, and the New York Post, in part because of the MTA's aggressive defense posture and in part because of the sheer size of the award for a trip-and-fall. Liakas, who was named to The National Trial Lawyers' "Top 40 Under 40" in 2020 and has maintained the designation every year since, is credited with recovering hundreds of millions of dollars for injured victims across his career. The MTA has indicated it is reviewing the verdict and "assessing all legal options."
Why he made the list: This verdict demonstrates that even against a well-funded government entity arguing contributory negligence and suicide, a premises liability claim based on a damaged walking surface can prevail spectacularly when the evidence is clear and the trial lawyer is relentless.
Website: liakaslaw.com
Location: White Plains, NY (Westchester County), with offices in the Bronx and Queens Case highlight: $8.8 million settlement, parking garage trip and fall, New York
David Lever secured an $8.8 million settlement for a client who tripped and fell in a parking garage pothole, suffering severe cervical injuries that required multiple surgeries and caused significant lost income. The case went to trial, where the jury returned a 100% liability verdict against the defendants. The $8.8 million settlement was negotiated as the damages phase was about to begin, a tactical outcome that locked in a massive recovery while eliminating the uncertainty of a damages deliberation.
Lever was named to Crain's New York Business Notable Litigators and Trial Attorneys for 2025, with the Crain's profile specifically citing the parking garage case. Together with co-founding partner Daniel G. Ecker, the firm claims over 70 years of combined experience and more than $250 million in total compensation recovered for clients. Lever also serves on the board of Adults and Children with Learning and Developmental Disabilities. The firm's main office sits in White Plains, making it one of the most prominent personal injury practices headquartered in Westchester County.
Why he made the list: An $8.8 million recovery for a parking garage trip-and-fall is an exceptional result by any standard. Lever's Crain's recognition in 2025 and his Westchester base make him a natural fit for anyone in the county seeking experienced premises liability representation.
Website: leverecker.com
Location: 1 Penn Plaza, Manhattan, New York City Case highlight: Multiple seven-figure slip-and-fall recoveries, including $3.125 million hotel fall and $1.5 million sidewalk ice fall
Block O'Toole & Murphy doesn't just win premises liability cases, they win them at volume. The firm's slip-and-fall results read like a catalog of New York's most dangerous surfaces: $3.125 million for a Brooklyn hotel employee who slipped on debris and fell down a staircase; $1.5 million for a mother of three who slipped on an icy sidewalk and required cervical spinal surgery; $1.2 million for a dental assistant who tripped on a depressed drain; and $1.2 million for a woman who slipped at a CVS on a recurring ice condition and fractured her pelvis. The firm has also secured a $9 million settlement for a child injured in a wall collapse at a Nassau County shopping mall and a $5.85 million settlement for an apartment ceiling collapse.
Senior partner Daniel O'Toole settled in excess of $150 million in cases in 2024 alone, with lifetime recoveries approaching $1 billion. He was named Best Lawyers "Lawyer of the Year" for Personal Injury Plaintiffs in New York City for 2026. Partner David Scher served as president of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association in 2024, and partner Stephen Murphy, a former homicide prosecutor, has secured more than 100 individual results exceeding $1 million. Since 2012, no firm in New York has achieved more results exceeding $1 million than Block O'Toole & Murphy, which has recovered over $2 billion for clients in total.
Why they made the list: For a slip-and-fall victim in New York City, Block O'Toole offers something rare: a proven track record of seven-figure results across virtually every type of fall scenario, backed by institutional resources and some of the most decorated trial lawyers in the state.
Website: blockotoole.com
Location: New York City (Bronx trial practice) Case highlight: $10 million jury verdict, trip and fall at Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville (2023)
Yolanda Bako, a 71-year-old retired Bronx resident, attended a Women's History Conference at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, just across the Westchester County line, in March 2017. After a luncheon in the Visual Arts Center, she tripped on the base of an art installation and fell, suffering a minimally displaced right hip fracture that required surgical fixation and ultimately led to bilateral hip replacements and aggravated incontinence. The college's insurer refused to offer more than $1 million before trial. Williamson took the case to a Bronx County jury, which found Sarah Lawrence 100% at fault and returned a $10 million verdict.
Williamson brings more than 20 years of trial experience to premises liability work, having started his career as a senior trial attorney for the City of New York in Brooklyn. He is ranked #4 among the "Winningest New York Law Firms" by VerdictSearch and is a multiple-year recipient of the New York Law Journal's Top Verdict and Top Settlement awards. His co-counsel on the Sarah Lawrence case, Nathan Werksman of Merson Law PLLC, has recovered more than $150 million for clients and serves as Deputy Treasurer of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association. Williamson also secured a record-setting $117+ million verdict in 2022 in a non-medical malpractice case, one of the largest in New York State history.
Why he made the list: The Sarah Lawrence verdict is a textbook example of premises liability excellence: a case many would have settled for a fraction of the ultimate award, tried to a decisive result by an attorney who refused to accept the defense's lowball valuation of his client's injuries. The Bronxville venue adds direct Westchester relevance.
Website: nytrialesquire.com