In what is believed to be the largest pain-and-suffering damages award ever handed down by an appellate court in New York state, a key intermediate-level court has decided that a severely brain-injured man will receive $20 million in pain-and-suffering damages.

In combination with a $13 million pain-and-suffering damages award given earlier this year in another case, by the same intermediate Appellate Division, First Department court, the First Department, which handles appeals from Manhattan and the Bronx, has quickly moved the bar higher for pain-and-suffering damages on the whole in New York state, maintains Benedict Morelli, the lawyer for the plaintiff set to receive $20 million and a decades-long veteran of personal injury litigation in New York.