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Block O’Toole & Murphy: The New York Firm Behind the Largest Non-Medical-Malpractice Injury Verdict in State History

The number is $110,174,972.38 — a jury verdict for a cyclist paralyzed by a falling railroad tie during subway maintenance in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and believed to be the largest personal injury verdict outside of medical malpractice in New York State history. It belongs to Block O’Toole & Murphy.

Origin and Background

Block O’Toole & Murphy practices from 1 Penn Plaza, Suite 4850, directly above Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan, confirmed through the firm’s own site and independent directory listings. The firm’s legal team includes decorated former prosecutors and seasoned civil litigators, and it represents individuals and families across all five boroughs and New York State in serious injury and wrongful death cases.

Practice Concentration

The firm’s practice is exclusively plaintiff-side personal injury: construction accidents, motor vehicle collisions, premises liability, third-party work injuries, and wrongful death. New York Labor Law Sections 240(1) and 241(6) — the state’s scaffold-law protections for construction workers — feature heavily in its most significant results. See this New York Personal Injury directory for how this verdict-driven trial practice compares to other plaintiff firms serving the five boroughs.

Notable Work / Track Record

According to ALM’s VerdictSearch, no law firm in New York State has reported more case results exceeding $1,000,000 than Block O’Toole & Murphy in every year since 2012 — a claim sourced to a third-party legal-results database rather than the firm alone. Headline results the firm reports include the $110,174,972 Brooklyn verdict for the paralyzed cyclist, a $65,000,000 settlement against the MTA for a catastrophically injured 23-year-old cyclist — reported as the largest personal injury settlement of its kind — and a $53,500,000 Brooklyn jury verdict for a 43-year-old construction worker paralyzed in a Labor Law 240(1) case. The firm states total recoveries exceeding $2 billion. Past results do not guarantee similar outcomes.

Client Voice

The firm maintains a substantial public review footprint across platforms including Yelp and Google; Awesome Attorneys did not identify a pattern of negative reviews warranting disclosure. Client-facing materials emphasize multilingual service, including Spanish, Russian, and Polish.

Beyond the Courtroom

The firm’s attorneys have been recognized by Fordham Law School and St. John’s School of Law among other institutions, and the firm appears in the Irish Legal 100.

Recognition for This New York Personal Injury Firm

Firm attorneys hold recognitions from Best Lawyers, Super Lawyers, the National Trial Lawyers, Martindale-Hubbell, and the New York Law Journal — peer-reviewed and editorially selected credentials distinct from paid marketing placements. New York State does not operate a state-run attorney specialization certification program comparable to Texas’s TBLS, so Awesome Attorneys does not apply “specialist” language to any New York profile on a state-certification basis.

New York Legal Backdrop

Most New York personal injury claims carry a three-year statute of limitations under CPLR 214(5), and New York applies pure comparative negligence under CPLR 1411, meaning an injured person’s recovery is reduced by their share of fault rather than barred by it. Claims against the City of New York or its agencies — a recurring defendant in this firm’s results, including the MTA — generally require a notice of claim within 90 days under General Municipal Law Section 50-e. Construction workers injured in elevation-related accidents benefit from the near-strict liability of Labor Law Section 240(1). None of this is legal advice; a specific injury claim should be evaluated by a licensed New York attorney based on the actual facts involved.

Awesome Attorneys Assessment

Block O’Toole & Murphy’s clearest differentiator is externally auditable: the VerdictSearch record showing more million-dollar-plus results than any other New York firm every year since 2012, anchored by the state’s largest non-medical-malpractice injury verdict. The honest trade-off is that a firm built around maximum-severity litigation is structured for catastrophic cases — a person with a modest soft-tissue claim may find that high-volume settlement practices are a more natural fit than a firm whose signature results involve paralysis and eight- and nine-figure recoveries. For a seriously injured New Yorker — particularly a construction worker with a Labor Law claim or a victim of municipal-agency negligence — this firm’s verdict history is among the strongest bases for a shortlist in the state.

Methodology and Sourcing

This profile was researched from Block O’Toole & Murphy’s own site, its FindLaw and Yelp listings, its Best Lawyers editorial coverage, and the ALM VerdictSearch-sourced results claims the firm publishes with attribution.

Publisher Disclosure and Independence Notice

Awesome Attorneys is an independent legal directory and editorial publication. This profile was not paid for, commissioned, or reviewed by Block O’Toole & Murphy prior to publication. Awesome Attorneys may in the future offer sponsored placement products to attorneys and firms, including this one, but sponsorship has no bearing on the editorial content, inclusion, or findings of this profile.