An employee of events in New York, who was awarded a historic sentence of millions of dollars in 2019, after an incident in Jones Beach left him with severe brain injuries years ago, is now involved in a dispute with his former lawyer for 5.5 million dollars legal fees.
The amount is over 18 million dollars, which the man from Long Island Mark Perez, 38, has already paid to lawyer Benedict Morelli.
Morelli now claims entitlement to $ 5.5 million in legal fees and filed a lawsuit last month, according to New York Post.
Perez received a jury of $ 109 million sentence in 2019 after suing Live Nation for an incident that occurred in 2013.
In June 2013, a forklift crashed into a structure Perez was working on at the Jones Beach Theater in New York, causing him to fall from 10 feet. He suffered skull fractures and a traumatic brain injury that required multiple surgeries.
Mark Perez, 38, who received a multimillion-dollar sentence after a Jones Beach incident, is on trial by his former lawyer, Benedict Morelli, who claims to be entitled to $ 5.5 million in legal fees.
Lawyer Benedict Morelli said he never agreed to the hourly wage and that Perez “chose to remain silent” for the additional 10 per cent fee until the case is closed.
Perez and his lawyer at the time, Morelli, agreed that Morelli would receive a third of the money for the sentence as an unforeseen fee.
But when the verdict went to appeal, Morelli tried to negotiate an additional 10 percent fee.
However, Perez tried to pay the lawyer an hourly rate, according to his counterclaims in the case that Morelli filed against him last month.
“I think lawyers need to be paid well for their work, someone like me needs them to fight for them, but for Mr Morelli to take away so much of the agreement, it just seems wrong,” he wrote recently. Perez to the judge that he is leading the trial against him for bodily harm.
Perez never signed an agreement for an additional fee, the Post reported, and Morelli continued to work on the case and managed to secure a $ 55 million agreement for Perez.
Of the total settlement, Perez received only about $ 28 million.
‘[Morelli] continues to insist that he be paid $ 5.5 million for his post-trial and appellate work (in addition to the $ 18,333,333.30 that Mr Perez has already paid for court fees), demonstrating that the greed of Morelli has no borders, “Perez’s counterclaim said.
Last week, Morelli asked a judge to dismiss his ex-client’s counterclaims, saying he had never agreed to the hourly rate and that Perez had “chosen to remain silent” about the additional 10 per cent fee until the case was closed.
In June 2013, a forklift crashed into a structure Perez was working on at the Jones Beach Theater, causing him to fall from 10 feet. He suffered skull fractures that required multiple surgeries
‘Mr. Perez accepted the benefits of the company’s work on the complaint, did not terminate the company and did not ask the company to stop working on the issue, “Morelli’s lawyers wrote in the documentation on Thursday. “He chose to remain silent until the company completed its appeal, thus ratifying the 10% fee agreement.”
In a letter to Judge Perez, he said: “I am the one who lives with seizures, operations and constant fear of more medical problems.
“I hope you can help me now by deciding what needs to be done here. Thank you for hearing my trial. I look forward to moving forward and leaving this last unpleasant situation behind.
According to the original lawsuit, Perez’s doctors estimated a 10 percent survival rate when he was first treated. After his recovery, they believe that Perez will suffer lifelong consequences from his brain injuries.
In addition to physical injuries, Perez has also suffered mental and emotional injuries with the loss of his relationship with his fiancée, his ability to enjoy past hobbies such as snorkeling, and his ability to maintain a normal lifestyle.