The MTA doesn’t issue an apology when someone is hit by a subway train — and it doesn’t whip out the checkbook, either.
About 90% of the 92 “man-under” lawsuits that were resolved in the last five years ended in the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s favor, according to a breakdown by the MTA.
The MTA didn’t pay a dime in 73 of those cases. It dispensed with another nine cases with paltry go-away payments averaging $40,000, according to the authority’s information. Five big cases did result in payoffs totaling $33 million.
“They fight tooth and nail and they win plenty of them,” said veteran civil court lawyer Gary Pillersdorf, who has filed lawsuits on behalf of about two dozen riders or their estates.
In the MTA’s eyes, anyone who is hit by a train probably has no one else to blame but themselves, and the authority shouldn’t have to give away any taxpayer money, no matter how horrific the injuries inflicted. Riders enter the system drunk as skunks and fall onto the tracks. They sometimes moronically go to the tracks to retrieve umbrellas or cell phones. And they jump to commit suicide by train.
“We view the public interest as best served through the vigorous defense, often including trial, of lawsuits of this nature, in which individuals seek public funds after placing themselves in positions of obvious danger through their own illegal or reckless conduct,” said Martin Schnabel, general counsel of the MTA’s NYC Transit division.
The MTA is rarely interested in settling man-under cases before trial. If it loses, it keeps fighting through appeals.
Take the case of Alice Huang. The 18-year-old was getting off an F train in December 2001 when she dropped her Bible on the platform edge. She bent down, near the idling train, to pick it up. As the train started to pull out of the W. 23rd St. station, one of the cars struck Huang in the head.
The force spun her around. One of her legs was caught between the moving train and the platform. Huang underwent nearly 20 operations and was permanently disabled.
During the 2004 trial, Huang’s lawyer, David Dean, said the train conductor should have seen Huang and alerted the motorman.
The MTA’s defense? The train wasn’t out of place, she was. A conductor, located in the middle car, must visually check the platform. But a conductor can’t look in two directions at once and shouldn’t be expected to see every possible hazard.
The jury awarded Huang $28.5 million. The MTA appealed. It wound up paying $12.75 million.
