(12PressRelease.com) The City has continually tried to hide behind a wall of unfair laws and restrictive judicial decisions which have slowly whittled away an injured person's right to sue a municipality for negligence.
Prior to 1980, it is true that the City of New York, like other cities throughout New York State, were essentially sitting ducks for the likes of any pedestrian who claimed to be injured as a result of tripping on a broken sidewalk. (Although this writer practices law exclusively in New York City, I assume that the situation is similar in other states.) Even in the case where there were no witnesses, the City had essentially no defense to a suit for personal injuries because as the owner of the sidewalk, it had a non-delegable duty to maintain it in a reasonably safe condition for all users.
The facts of our case are disturbing:
A 43-year-old woman rode her bike with her boyfriend from the Upper West Side down Central Park West intending to go across the park to get to the east side. This was around 7:30 am on the day before the New York City Marathon in November of 2005. As they arrived at the entrance to the 65th Street transverse (one of the roads that cut across the park) they saw a City worker putting up barricades to close off the very road they had wanted to cross on. They asked the man if it was still okay if they go through on the road he was closing. He said "Sure, go ahead."
What he didn't tell them was that he was closing the road because the roadway under the second overpass about a half a mile east was completely broken up due to a broken sewer main and that there was a crew of 5 men and three trucks waiting to start an excavation and repair at that location.
Without any warnings, signs, cones, flagmen or barricades the woman rode her bike into the pitch black underneath the overpass. Her bike went straight into a pit throwing her forward, smashing her face on the edge of the excavation. She tore her mouth severely, fractured her skull, jaw, nose, and septum, broke numerous teeth, shoved the remainder of her teeth back into her mouth, damaged her tear duct so badly that it required a tube be surgically inserted into her duct and worn continuously for six months, and she sustained permanent vertigo. She underwent 19 plastic surgeries and is left with very obvious cosmetically disfiguring scarring around her mouth and nose that is readily apparent and that cannot be improved with any more plastic surgery.
The claims of liability against the City were threefold.
First, the issue of pure common law negligence. The man who waved them into the construction site happened to be the foreman on the job that day. He allowed them to ride their bikes on that road despite knowing of the dangers. He clearly acted without reasonable care under the circumstances and was negligent under New York State law. Due to what is known as vicarious liability, the City would be liable for acts of its worker who was in the course of his employment at the time.
For more details please visit:
www.dandalaw.com