Ben Rubinowitz: Former Cornell student scores $71M verdict for crippling car crash

Nypost.com By Julia Marsh 9/29/17

A former Cornell University student who was nearly killed in a horrific car crash won a record-setting $71 million verdict from a Manhattan jury Thursday.

“My life has never been the same,” Morgan Wang, 24, told The Post about the accident.

The Brooklyn resident sued the driver, Cornell grad Neil Sexton, who fell asleep at the wheel on Aug. 20, 2012, and crashed into an oncoming vehicle on state Route 79 on the way to the university. Wang was a passenger in Sexton’s Chevrolet Equinox.

After a three-week trial in Manhattan Supreme Court a three-man, three-woman jury awarded Wang $5 million for past pain and suffering, $6 million for future pain and suffering and $60 million for medical care.

“This is one of the largest awards for this type of injury ever in the country,” said Ben Rubinowitz, Wang’s lawyer.

Wang was airlifted to SUNY Upstate hospital from the accident scene, where the other driver, a 94-year-old woman, was killed.

She suffered a fractured back and spinal cord injury.

Wang was unable to finish school after the accident as the hilly Cornell campus was too challenging for her to navigate in a wheelchair, Rubinowtiz said.

She now uses leg braces to walk, but will never have feeling in her feet, her lawyer said.

The former skier, runner and sailor now focuses her energies on rehab and pain management, he added.

Sexton’s attorney, Grant Meisels, declined to comment.

http://nypost.com/2017/09/29/former-cornell-student-scores-71m-verdict-for-crippling-car-crash/