"I think that the court was ready to start making a move to bring the damage awards into the modern era, into 2021, where we know that things are very different" from the past, "when we have so many things costing so much more money, and so many [people] earning so much more money," he stated in a phone interview Wednesday.

On Friday, the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York, a non-for-profit group that aims to reduce "lawsuit abuse" for the benefit of New Yorkers, pushed back against the First Department's decision to award the $20 million in damages to Morelli's client.

"A Manhattan appeals court just detonated a bomb in the form of a $20 million pain and suffering award and the consequences will be felt throughout the state," the group's statement said. "The fallout from this latest 'nuclear verdict' will lead to more massive and unpredictable payouts, which ultimately means higher insurance costs for struggling businesses and cash-strapped public entities like local municipalities and the MTA."

The group, which describes itself as a collection of businesses, healthcare providers, membership organizations and concerned taxpayers committed to fixing New York's civil justice system, added, "The court needs to take another look at this decision and how personal injury trial lawyers distort the concept of fair compensation to judges and members of the jury. If the court upholds these outsized jury awards, and the trial bar is allowed to continue these tactics, it will be a feeding frenzy and plaintiffs attorneys will get bolder and richer while the rest of New York foots the bill."

The Lawsuit Reform Alliance was one of more than 25 groups, associations and insurers that submitted amicus curiae briefs during the appeal of the brain-injured man's case, as they aimed, in Morelli's words, to convince the First Department panel to "hold the numbers down" in regard to the pain-and-suffering damages to be awarded.

On Wednesday, in the phone interview, Morelli noted that more than 15 years ago, the Appellate Division, Second Department, which handles appeals from Brooklyn, Staten Island, Long Island and parts of upstate New York, awarded $16 million to a severely injured plaintiff, and that that previous record amount has sat unrivaled for many years.

In addition, both Morelli and, according to him, the four-justice First Department panel that heard argument and asked questions during the appeal of the $20 million case, recognize that each personal injury plaintiff is unique, each injury is unique and, therefore, each case is unique.

"The judges said it themselves," during oral argument, that "every person is unique, every injury is unique in its own way," he said.

The plaintiffs-side lawyer did not rule out that his client Mark Perez's $20 million award, and the $13 million award, may sit for a long time, even years, as outliers before another pain-and-suffering award comes along to surpass the marks.

But he said he believes the First Department justices who ruled in the Perez brain-injury case knew they were making a significant increase and opening the door to higher pain-and-suffering damages in a state, he said, in which those damages have rarely risen above $5 million or $6 million once appealed.

It is not clear whether defendant Live Nation Worldwide Inc. in the Perez case, which was brought in 2013, will seek leave to appeal to New York's highest court the First Department's decision.

Timothy Capowski, a partner at Shaub, Ahmuty, Citrin & Spratt on Long Island who represented Live Nation in the appeal, could not be reached for comment.

Moreover, the First Department panel, in handing down its opinion Tuesday, decided, while citing case law precedent, to cut in half Perez's trial court-awarded pain-and-suffering damages of $40.6 million.

In assessing the First Department's decision to give Perez a total of $20 million for past and future pain and suffering, Morelli said, "I think the court felt—from the decision I read, the arguments, and the questions that they asked me during the oral argument—that they were ready to make a significant increase in the conscious pain and suffering and severe catastrophic cases."

"They made it clear" during argument, he said, "that they were looking at things with a very fresh eye."

Morelli, founder of the boutique personal injury firm the Morelli Law Firm, also said that "basically my adversaries" in the Perez appeal "were telling the court that they were constrained to certain numbers" that could be awarded as a pain-and-suffering amount.

"I said there is no cap on damages in New York state," Morelli said of the argument he made to the appellate panel.

Asked about why the First Department panel may have decided to raise the bar for pain-and-suffering damages now, as opposed to a previous time, Morelli said he doesn't think "things … happen for one reason, generally."

He said he believes the First Department panel, composed of Justices Sallie Manzanet-Daniels, Angela Mazzarelli, Jeffrey Oing and Tanya Kennedy, came into the oral argument "ready to listen to something new" in regard to pain-and-suffering damages.

Moreover, he said, "I think [Perez's case] was a case that a struck a chord with the judges in very sensitive way."

"My client was only 30 years old at the time" he was injured and "he didn't get a chance to live his adult life before he got injured," Morelli said. After the accident, said Morelli, Perez "lost his fiancée, and so he didn't get a chance to get married, have children and have a career that was fulfilling to him."

Perez suffered what is expected to be a severe lifelong brain injury and effects. In 2013, he toppled from a high scaffold-type structure while working construction at the Jones Beach concert theater on Long Island after another worker rammed the structure with a forklift. Years later, he eventually won summary judgment on liability against the concert's producer, Live Nation, Morelli has said.

Asked about the panel's decision to slice in half Perez's pain-and-suffering award from $40.6 million to $20 million, Morelli said, "They are moving forward more than they ever did, but they are not leaping forward."

In the panel's four-paragraph opinion, the justices wrote that Manhattan Supreme Court Justice John Kelley's trial court award of $40.6 million, which itself was a judge-decided reduction of a jury's $85.75 million award, "for past and future pain and suffering deviates materially from what would be reasonable compensation to the extent indicated." And the justices cited state statute CPLR Section 5501[c].

Continuing, the justices said that Perez "presented proof that he suffered a severe traumatic brain injury that resulted in encephalomalacia, cerebral atrophy, traumatic epilepsy, chronic pain and headaches, significant cognitive deficits in attention, processing speed, memory, visual perception, intellectual function, and executive functions, depression, anxiety, symptoms of post-traumatic stress, and increased risk of neurological disease, all of which are permanent in nature."

"However," the justices wrote, "the jury's award of $85.75 million, reduced to $40.6 million by the trial court, is significantly higher than the awards in any of the cases cited, including those involving similarly devastating injuries." The panel then pointed to the 2021 First Department opinion in Hedges v. Planned Security Service.

In addition to the $20 million pain-and-suffering award, Perez, 37, was awarded at trial $13.5 million in future and past medical care and future lost wages, Morelli has said. That amount was left intact by the unanimous First Department panel.

The panel broke down Perez's pain-and-suffering damages into $5 million for past pain and suffering and $15 million for future.

On Tuesday, Morelli, a nationally known and respected plaintiffs-side lawyer, said, "This is one of the most, if not the most, satisfying decisions I ever gotten because it moved all New York [personal injury plaintiffs] forward in terms of them being awarded conscious pain and suffering."

"We have to keep fighting the fight," he added, referring to the plaintiffs-side bar.

According to a First Department decision listing, the amici that submitted briefs addressing the potential pain-and-suffering award to be handed down included the New York State Conference of Mayors and Municipal Officials, Business Council of New York State, Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York, Building Trades Employers Association and Associated General Contractors of New York State, among others.

Morelli said Perez was able to watch the appellate arguments because of a remote court feed available during the pandemic.

After Tuesday's decision awarding him a total of $33.5 million, "he basically said to me that he was relieved," said Morelli.