Thomas J. Moverman
Lipsig, Shapey, Manus & Moverman, P.C.
25th Floor
40 Fulton Street
New York, NY 10038-1850
Communication Center
Phone - (212) 285-3300
1 (800) 9-LIPSIG (Toll Free)
Fax - (212) 406-4544
Email - info@lipsig.com
Website - http://www.lipsig.com
Thomas J. Moverman established his law firm in 1989 with Harry Lipsig, Alan Shapey and Mark Manus. He specializes in products liability including cases arising from defective machinery, tools, autos, occupant protection and injury from toxic substances, chemicals and medication in New York state and federal courts.
He began working at the legendary Harry Lipsig’s law firm in 1983 and he quickly won several jury verdicts against product manufacturers. He was soon invited by a legal publisher to write a chapter in a treatise on Product Liability Law. He has lectured before legal groups on issues of products liability and expert testimony at trial.
He graduated from City College of New York and opened a construction business in Manhattan. A few years later, his interests expanded to law and he attended Brooklyn Law School and graduated in 1979. He chose night school so he could start to work in a legal job including positions at the New York County District Attorney’s Office and in the Port Authority New York Civil Litigation Unit.
His clients include the families of three women fatally burned by fuel from a gasoline tanker where issues of fuel-tank spill resistance and accident reconstruction were essential to proving liability. He represented a factory worker who lost his leg when struck by a forklift that was defectively designed due to obstructions to the operator’s rear-view together with an inadequate back-up warning system.
In a tragic and unusual case, he represented the family of a storekeeper who was killed by a vehicle. The police reported that an ambulance crew saw a “hit-and-run” livery cab fatally run over the pedestrian. Two “street people” told the family that the ambulance itself actually struck him. By use of a preliminary injunction, he obtained an immediate forensic inspection of the ambulance. Using the autopsy findings, the victim’s body size and computer analysis, he proved that the ambulance was the offending vehicle. Although the driver denied the event, the City offered a substantial settlement to the family. Computer re-enactment of the event demonstrated to the City that the ambulance was the fatal striking vehicle.
He obtained one of the largest libel jury verdicts in the New York State courts, $6,000,000, for the victim of a crime who was wrongfully accused of faking the report to the police. He used six expert witnesses on behalf of his client. At trial, he proved that the false statement caused economic loss when a new restaurant that the victim was about to open failed using an experienced New York City restaurant chef and an economist. He established the victim’s psychological damages with a psychiatrist.
In one case, a drunk driver struck a parked car that then hit the victim causing a leg amputation. The lawsuit against the bar, where driver was drinking, involved the use of a bartending instructor as an expert, toxicological and medical evidence and an extensive background investigation into the practices of the bar where the driver was served.
His clients included ten demolition workers with work-site lead poisoning at the 59th Street Bridge where exposure issues required a toxicologist and occupational medicine specialist; a mechanic crushed when a defective automotive lift collapsed and the victim of a defective tee-shirt who was severely burnt.
He was lead counsel on several significant cases for victims of the adverse effects of ephedra, an herbal product previously sold over-the-counter for weight loss and energy. His clients included a 44- year old mother of four sons now in a permanent coma and the estates of a 23 year old college athlete and a 41 year healthy father of two children. These cases required experts in cardiology, toxicology, epidemiology and other medical specialties. The legal issues concern the admissibility of expert testimony under the Daubert rules and the Federal Rules of Evidence and Civil Procedure.
His current concentration of cases includes defective occupant protection in automobiles, dangerous power machinery and toxic products. He also works on cases involving construction workers injured at work place accidents where he uses the technical services of engineers and other construction trades experts. His current clients include the victims of defective conditions on the roadways and sidewalks of New York City and surrounding counties. He is actively working on several significant cases involving recreational injury and death as well as highway design and maintenance.
Partner
- Bar Admissions:
- New York, 1979
- U.S. District Court Southern District of New York, 1979
- U.S. District Court Eastern District of New York, 1979
- U.S. District Court Eastern District of New York, 1979
- Education:
- Brooklyn Law School, Brooklyn, NY