Personal Injury Law

NYC Transit and Lawsuits: Easy Target?

By mbrickley

It seems like New York City Transit and the Metropolitan Transit Authority have seen quite a bit of news coverage in the past few months - and almost all of it has been linked to injuries and lawsuits.

According to a New York Daily News report, NYC Transit officials say legal quirks in the law make the organization an easy target for lawsuits. In the past 20 years, the MTA has paid out more than $1 billion in personal injury lawsuits.

The organization has tried to get the state to pass legislation protecting its rights when it comes to personal injury suits - but to no avail. The MTA pays for lawsuits involving very drunk passengers who fall on the tracks or voluntarily walk on the tracks because of their own impaired judgement. This is not something that a transit organization should be paying for.

As a result of the money put toward lawsuits, the MTA has less funding to do good things for transit, like update train tracks and increase service lines and times.

Unfortunately the New York legislature in Albany has not yet passed any laws that could protect the MTA against frivolous lawsuits for which it should not be held responsible, according to the New York Daily News.

If such legislation were to be passed, NYC Transit would save millions of dollars each year because of fewer personal injury lawsuits, and there would be greater strides taken to improve public transit in NYC.

Full post as published by The Injury Blog on June 29, 2009 (boomark / email).