Paul A. Scrudato

Paul led the representation of a prominent domestic defendant in one of the largest, politically charged and complicated mass torts in US history, the World Trade Center September 11 Disaster Site Litigation. The litigation involved claims by over 12,000 first responders who asserted personal injury and wrongful death claims due to working at the disaster site. Paul led a team of more than 20 lawyers and outside support vendors in creating a defense to the underlying claims and devised a settlement strategy that would run parallel to the litigation. Paul was the lead negotiator for the defendant and was ultimately successful in negotiating a resolution of the entire litigation.

Paul’s experience in mass torts is wide-ranging: he has defended one of the leading manufacturers of mobile phones against claims that radiofrequency energy from mobile phones can cause cancer and other health effects; he assisted a public utility in designing a negotiation strategy, and an outright defense, to claims arising from one of the largest coal ash spills in history; and he has led numerous initiatives to preclude expert testimony based on unreliable methodologies in various mass tort litigations.

Paul has long been in the forefront of asbestos litigation defense and remains one of the defense leaders in the New York City Asbestos Litigation. When the defendants in the litigation were asked to submit a single brief to the court arguing in favor of an inactive docket for unimpaired plaintiffs, hundreds of companies and law firms in New York agreed that Paul would write the brief on behalf of all defendants. His work persuaded the court to order the creation of an inactive docket, which resulted in over 25,000 cases being taken out of the trial queue. Paul was also central in the defendants’ success in shaping the law in New York to provide for more favorable share allocation at trial.

Paul was one of 20 trial lawyers selected by the American Trial Lawyers Association (ATLA) and Trial Lawyers Care to represent a lead case arising from the September 11 terrorist attacks. He was the only defense lawyer selected to handle a lead case by ATLA. The 20 lead cases were the first to proceed through the Federal Victim's Compensation Fund, 49 USC 40101 (2001), and were template cases for the thousands of claims to follow. The lead cases were instrumental in establishing the application of the regulations governing the fund to individual factual scenarios and expanded the range of potential monetary awards to victims.

Paul has spoken at more than 25 conferences on issues relating to mass torts, settlement of complex litigation, legal ethics and New York civil practice and procedure.