(
)
(
)
New York City taxpayers shelled out a half-billion dollars last year to people suing for everything from slip-and-falls to car accidents allegedly caused by city employees.
And that’s the good news.
The $506 million the city paid to plaintiffs in Fiscal Year 2012 was down from $565.2 million in FY 2011 — the first time in a decade such legal payouts declined.
But a Post review found some claimants are still collecting outrageous sums in questionable cases, from a well-manicured transit cop who collected nearly $1 million for cutting her hand on a swivel chair, to a drunken cyclist who reaped $3 million after straying onto an unlit dirt path in a city park.
Deluged with over 9,000 claims a year, city attorneys say they are fighting more cases in court rather than settling just to get rid of them. In many cases though, the city still reluctantly settles because going to trial can sock taxpayers even harder.
“Sympathetic juries can find for a plaintiff even in cases where city liability is not clear-cut,” said a Law Department spokeswoman.
That happened when a notoriously generous Bronx jury awarded Jeptha Wallace, a bouncer, $11.6 million after his car struck the rear of a Parks Department tractor making a U-turn, even though an expert for the city testified the tractor had nearly completed the turn.
The city appealed, but still wound up paying Wallace $3 million last year for a herniated disc.
The Law Department says it has launched a strategy to duke it out more aggressively, starting in federal court.
“The city makes motions to dismiss 2,000 cases annually, succeeding 70 percent of the time and saving tens of millions of dollars,” the spokeswoman said.
Carole Kellerman, president of the Citizens Budget Commission, praised the effort, but said, “You can always do more. You can always have more dialogues with the agencies about what is happening to cause the claims.”
Here are summaries of some claims the city paid in 2012.
Aches, pains—and claims
Last year, $506 million in taxpayer money went out the door, as the city either lost in court or settled 5,200 lawsuits for personal injuries, property damage and other claims.
The city’s biggest hit in 2012 was $15 million to settle a class-action suit on behalf of 22,000 people, including vagrants and panhandlers, arrested by NYPD cops for loitering—years after state antiloitering laws were ruled unconstitutional.
Other payouts include:
Sewer overflow, property damage: $351,600
Staten Island Ferry injuries: $6.9M
Discrimination suits: $7.6M
Jail injuries: $9.5M
Defective road injuries: $17.9M
Defective sidewalk injuries: $37.3M
NYPD officer actions, such as false arrest: $105.8M
$3M for blotto biker’s wipeout
In August 2005, Albert Somma, 56, of New Jersey was working as a bartender on Third Avenue and 40th Street. He downed two mixed drinks at work and two more beers with a buddy after getting off, according to court papers.
By the time he started taking the bike path home up Riverside Park, an emergency-room doctor later wrote, he “was intoxicated . . . by more than twice the legal limit” that would apply if he were driving a car.
North of the 79th Street Boat Basin, Somma decided not to ride on the paved, well-lit city bike path, but chose a dark, dirt path along the river impeded by large stones.
At 12:45 a.m., his tire hit a concrete slab and he fell forward. The accident left him a quadriplegic.
The city originally fought him in court, but during the trial it decided to settle.
Despite the fact that he was drunk and not riding on a bike path, he got $3 million in taxpayer money.
Somma and his lawyer did not return calls.
The ex-cop with the 900G hands
Ex-NYPD transit cop Nigeria Brown-Forde holds a cupcake in the palms of her French-manicured hands during a shopping trip in August, photos on Twitter show, just before Brown-Forde (below and right) won a $900,000 settlement from the city for “serious” injuries to one of those hands.
Brown-Forde, 35, of New York and Florida, went to sit down on a swivel chair in the women’s locker room at Transit District 12’s station house in January 2009 “when the palm of her hand was cut on exposed metal in the right armrest of the chair,” her suit alleged.
“She had very serious, disabling injuries,” attorney Matthew Oshman told The Post. “As a result, she was separated from the department because she could no longer function as a police officer.”
Her husband, Reginald, 45, joined the suit because he “was deprived of the services of a spouse,” the suit alleged.
Beside the payout, Brown-Forde retired from the department with a tax-free disability pension.
Now she goes on shopping sprees. Her Twitter has pictures taken in Chicago as she headed to fashion retailer Bebe’s fall fashion preview. “having a blast with my salted caramel cup cake,” she Tweeted under handle “@nigee_love.”
“My cup cake is gone. Thank you BeBe,” she captioned another photo, showing off a large silver ring on one hand and charm bracelet on the other.
Brown-Forde refused to talk about her cut with The Post.
Pain in the neck nets $1M
A trip to jail made Nicole Banks a mint.
In May 2007, she boarded a bus on Rikers Island to visit an inmate. The driver slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting a correction officer’s van.
Like a handful of passengers, Banks, 37, of Manhattan, complained of pain after the abrupt stop, records show. She was taken to Elmhurst Hospital.
“My neck hurt,” she told a medic.
Banks also alleged an FDNY paramedic “forcibly touched” her during the three-mile ambulance ride off of the island.
The medic’s alleged behavior is described in court papers as “harmful and/or offensive in nature.” The city employee “assaulted/battered plaintiff Nicole Banks,” the claim stated.
Banks sought $2 million in damages.
The city took years to turn over documents, and it could not track down Toni Varner, the bus driver named in the suit, who no longer worked for the city.
The medic accused of sexual assault also left the FDNY, and did not respond to a subpoena.
The city finally settled for $1 million in June 2012 before the case could go before a jury.
Banks declined to comment.
$3M trash-truck blunder
Michael Gatti’s foot cost us an arm and a leg.
Gatti, 42, a city sanitation worker from Staten Island, was paid $3 million for a trash-hauling injury.
He had hopped out of a garbage truck to empty waste cans on Ninth Avenue and 44th Street on August 31, 2009, when the 38,000-pound vehicle rolled forward and crushed his foot.
“The partner . . . didn’t wait,” attorney Todd Strier told The Post.
Driver Michael Martin testified, “It is a common practice . . . to wait three seconds before pulling the truck forward in order to allow a fellow employee to get out of harm’s way.”
The city not only covered Gatti’s medical costs, it didn’t fight his lawsuit for pain and suffering. In February 2012, it settled the case for $3 million.
That’s not all: Gatti was allowed to retire and given a tax-free disability pension equal to three-quarters of his former salary.
Strier says Gatti had to undergo 11 surgeries and deserves the money.
“He’ll never be the same,” the lawyer said.
$1.5M sidewalk stumble
John Legakis, 66, had lived in Throggs Neck in The Bronx for decades and walked Randalls Avenue many times but “didn’t see” the deformed sidewalk that cost him his sight in one eye and required shoulder surgery, court papers say.
Legakis, a chef, was heading to a check-cashing joint on Aug. 22, 2008, when he fell on a slab that had been raised and cracked by tree roots, his suit alleged. Demanding $10 million, he blamed the city and the Parks Department.
“The sidewalk, it was like, you know, the square things on it, it was up like triple inches, like parts up. It was broken sidewalk,” he said in a deposition.
It was a clear summer day, and he was familiar with the street, he testified.
“I hit my front of the shoe, and I just lost control, and I went down with my face,” he said.
He had surgery twice on his eye and once on a rotator cuff and was unable to return to work, records say.
The city settled for $1.5 million in May 2010 rather than leave it up to a Bronx Supreme Court jury.