Lipsig, Shapey, Manus & Moverman, PC

In 2015, Alan M. Shapey successfully conducted three complex and difficult jury trials on behalf of clients of the Lipsig Law firm.

In a jury trial in Bronx County Supreme Court, Alan Shapey represented a young man who dropped his cell phone on the tracks of the subway and climbed down to retrieve it. As he tried to climb back up onto the platform, the train approached and entered the station. Unfortunately, our client was unable to climb up in time, and the subway train struck him, resulting in the amputation of both of his legs.

Alan Shapey was successful in proving to the trial jury that the subway train operator was partially at fault since the operator had sufficient time and distance to stop the train before striking our client’s body. The jury returned a verdict for the Lipsig Law firm’s client and awarded damages for his injuries that totaled more than $8,000,000.

In lengthy trial in Suffolk County, a New York City suburb, the issue for the jury was the amount of damages that the Lipsig Law firm client, a construction worker, suffered due to a fall from a defective scaffold several years earlier. Alan Shapey had to prove to the jury that our client’s injury, a lumbar disc herniation that required surgery over 3 years later, was caused by the fall. Alan Shapey presented testimony from treating doctors, including an orthopedic surgeon, a radiologist and a spinal surgeon, as well as an expert economist. The jurors in Suffolk County returned a verdict over $6,000,000 for our Lipsig Law firm client. When legal interest is added to the verdict, the total amount recovered is over $8,000,000. Adding to the difficulty of this trial was the fact that investigators had taken 14 hours of video surveillance of our client and these videos were played to the jury by the defense attorneys.

In a recent trial in Brooklyn, Alan Shapey was able to prove to a jury that a new condo building developer was partially responsible for damages suffered by our Lipsig Law firm client. Our client, who was at a party in the building, climbed onto a parapet wall surrounding the roof of a residential building in Williamsburg and then fell 70 feet into an alley alongside the roof.

The new building’s developer had divided the roof into separate recreational areas (with barbeques, electricity and water) that were sold as condos and included a large common area for use by the condominium owners and their guests. The roof was zoned for recreational purposes. Alan Shapey, working with experts in building construction, design and safety regulations, identified the NYC Building Code regulation that required ten-foot wire fences on roofs used for recreational purposes, not the 3 ½ foot high parapet wall that the developer provided. The jury in Brooklyn agreed that the developer was negligent for not complying with the applicable Building Code rule by failing to build the ten-foot fence around the roof and it found that the developer was 60% at fault for the fall incident. The jury returned a verdict of $43,000,000 in our client’s favor.

Education

New York Law School, New York, NY