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Parents Awarded $60.1 Million In Wrongful-Death Case

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By NEIL JOHNSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 2, 2008

Mary Ann and George Patisso Sr. closed a tragic chapter in their lives when they left Polk County today after a jury awarded them $60.1 million Tuesday for the wrongful death of their son.

It is a judgment they are unlikely to collect. The man who murdered their son in December 1997 is on death row.

But the case was not about the money, said Jeff Sullivan, the Bartow attorney who represented the parents of George Patisso Jr. in the wrongful-death case.

George Patisso Jr. was one of four people killed by Nelson Ivan Serrano at Erie Manufacturing in Bartow. Serrano was convicted of the mass murder in October 2006 and sentenced to death in 2007.

The wrongful-death case was delayed until the criminal trial ended. The civil trial started Monday and ended Tuesday. The jury was out about an hour, Sullivan said.

Both parents, who did not testify during the penalty phase of Serrano's murder trial, told the jury of three men and three women how their son's murder shattered their lives, Sullivan said.

"It's been 10 years, and their lives have been absolutely devastated," the attorney said. "Their son was shot five times in the head while lying on the floor."

His body was flown to the family home near New York City on his 27th birthday, Sullivan said.

Though Serrano had enough money to hire a private attorney for his murder trial, it is unlikely he has anything left to pay the Patisso family. Sullivan said the law firm will make every effort to recover what they can.

The trial was solely about the amount of damages due the parents. The criminal conviction determined that Serrano, who did not attend the trial, was liable.

The jury awarded $30 million to each parent and $110,000 to cover lost wages, the funeral cost and other expenses.

The award of $60 million may be the largest in Polk County history, Sullivan said.

It is also unlikely that Sullivan's law firm, Stidham and Stidham, will collect its fee.

"We knew we would probably never see anything," Sullivan said.

"This was not about the money for the parents. They described it as closing a chapter in their lives," he said.

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