For the fourth time this year, New York City Transit has come out on the wrong end of a lawsuit. As The Times detailed today, a jury awarded a woman injured in a bus accident $27.5 million.
The woman, Gloria Aguilar, lost her left leg when a bus ran her down while she was crossing a street in 2005. While the jury found her partially negligent for not looking before stepping out into the street, the bus driver was deemed to be the total cause of her accident. Transit is appealing what, on its face, appears to be a rather large sum.
This is not the first time this year Transit has faced multi-million-dollar judgments, and the agency is appealing all of them. Liz Robbins summarized the rest. The details are rather gruesome.
In February, Dustin Dibble was awarded $2.3 million after a subway train ran over him in Manhattan in 2006 and he had to have his right leg amputated. He was intoxicated, but a jury found that he was only 35 percent culpable because the subway operator did not stop, court records show.
In March, a jury awarded James Sanders $7 million after a subway train struck him when he stumbled onto the tracks in 2002. The jury found him to be 30 percent culpable. His right leg had to be amputated, and he also lost an eye, said his lawyer, Gary Pillersdorf.
And last month, Claude Williams was awarded $1.8 million, according to court records, because he was hit by a New York City Transit bus in 2003.
While sizable, these sums are not unexpected, and the agency has a fund dedicated to its legal costs. However, Transit is going to attempt to get this $27.5 million figure lowered. “This is just a jury verdict,” Wallace Gossett, an NYC Transit lawyer, said to The Times. “The appellate courts won’t sustain a verdict of this magnitude.”
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From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 18 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 20, uptown 1, 2 and 3 trains skip 96th Street due to station rehabilitation.
From 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Saturday, April 18 and Sunday April 19, 3 trains run in two sections due to track repairs at Sutter and Rockaway Avenues:
- Between 148th Street and Utica Avenue and
- Between Utica and New Lots Avenue
From 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Saturday, April 18 and Sunday April 19, 4 trains will terminate at Atlantic Avenue.
From 10:30 p.m. Friday, April 17 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 20, free shuttle buses replace A trains between Beach 90 Street and Far Rockaway due to track panel installation at Far Rockaway. Note: Trains to Far Rockaway-Mott Avenue run to Rockaway Park-Beach 116th Street instead.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 18, to 5 a.m. Monday, April 20, downtown A trains run local from 168th Street to 59th Street, then express to Canal Street, trains resume local service to Jay Street due to the station rehabilitation at Jay Street, the Chamber Street Signal Modernization project and station rehabilitation at 59th Street-Columbus Circle.
Note: C trains are not running at this time.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 18 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 20, uptown A trains run local from Jay Street to 125th Street, then express to 168th Street due to station rehab work at Jay Street and tunnel lighting work at 168th Street. Note: C trains are not running during this time.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 18, to 5 a.m. Monday, April 20, there are no C trains running due to station rehab work at Jay Street. A trains replace the C between 168th and Jay Street and F trains replace the C between Jay Street and Euclid Avenue.
From 11:30 p.m. Friday, April 17 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 20, free shuttle buses replace D trains between 205th Street and Bedford Park Blvd. due to a track chip-out of Bedford Park Blvd.
From 12:01 a.m. to 5 a.m. Saturday, April 18, Bronx-bound D trains skip 155th Street due to track cleaning.
From 12:01 a.m. to 5 a.m. Sunday, April 19, Bronx-bound D trains skip 174th-175th and 170th Streets due to track cleaning.
From 12:01 p.m. Saturday, April 18 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 20, there are no E trains between West 4th Street and World Trade Center due to the Chambers Street Signal Modernization project. Customers may take the A train instead.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 18 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 20, F trains run between 179th Street and the Euclid Avenue C station due to station rehabilitation at Jay Street.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 18 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 20, G trains replace the F between Hoyt-Schermerhorn Sts. and Stillwell Avenue due to station rehabilitation at Jay Street.
From 8:30 p.m. Friday, April 17 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 20 (until further notice), there are no G trains between Forest Hills-71st Avenue and Court Square. Customers should take the E or R instead.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 18 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 20, Brooklyn-bound N and R trains are rerouted over the Manhattan Bridge from Canal Street to DeKalb Avenue due to structural work between Whitehall and Canal Streets and for station rehab work at Lawrence Street. Customers may take the 4 at nearby stations.
4 comments
How come nobody is suing individual drivers for equivalent crimes? Surely some of them can afford to pay at least a few thousand for the destruction they cause. Streetsblog has an angry article about once a week describing someone getting hit and killed by a car. There are never any criminal or civil charges or lawsuits.
Drivers get sued so much that it’s not even newsworthy anymore. Generally the insurance companies settle and cover the few thousand. Plus New York has a No-Fault scheme to cover injuries.
Juries love issuing big verdicts against NYCT for two reasons:
1) They think that NYCT has a bottomless well of money;
2) They are angry over fare hikes and the like and see big jury verdicts as a way to “get back” at NYCT.
As a lawyer for the past 19 years, I can tell you that jury verdicts, especially in personal injury cases like these, are often separated from reason by various factors, include race and religious bias, and money and class bias (poor people sticking it to upper class defendants or “The Man”). That’s why appellate courts very often reduce jury verdicts like these (and that’s another reason why you shouldn’t believe the subway lawyers posters boasting about how much they’ve won for plaintiffs – while its true that the original jury verdicts were large, the amounts their clients actually received may be far less.)
Let’s be honest paktype, regardless of Jury verdicts, if LAWYERS weren’t able to “Back up the Brinks Truck” and empty them out into their own wallets, they’d HARDLY make time for these lawsuits.
When I have to CONSTANTLY SMELL urine at most of the platforms, and have to sit in UNBEARABLY HOT cars during the summer, then yes, I DO think that NYCT sits on a BIG sack of money. I mean, where’s the money going to CLEAN and REPAIR trains? Certainly NOT FOR TRANPORTATION! The money goes to NYCT Big-Wigs and Fat-Cats and the Union Reps who make sure that workers are able to retire on more money then I’ll EVER see.
I need to work to age 100 to put food on the table, and these dudes can put in a couple of 24 hour days a month before they retire, and then they can retire on HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS. Nice work, if you can get it!
The heck with TORT REFORM, what we need is an ability to cap the amount of an award that can go to attorneys, doctors and our City workers.