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It’s a city where every measly pothole and shaky monkey bar can mean a megabucks legal payout — with taxpayers footing the multibillion-dollar bill.
The city was socked with an astronomical $6 billion in judgments and settlements paid to plaintiffs between fiscal years 2000 and 2010 — including a slew based on outrageous, costly claims, according to a Post analysis of city comptroller records.
The mind-boggling payout figure is a product of state tort laws that are some of the most lax in the country, along with the larger societal instinct to sue at the drop of a hat, according to critics.
“The enticement is there to file,” said Lawrence McQuillan of the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, a conservative think tank that ranks New York as the second most lawsuit-friendly state in the country because of liberal tort rules.
“People are lawsuit-happy. [But] we all pay for this, whether we realize it or not,” McQuillan said.
Last year alone, the city shelled out $520.6 million in claims — the bulk forked over in cases against the NYPD, the Health and Hospitals Corp. and the Department of Transportation, according to a biannual report released by City Comptroller John Liu in June.
Personal-injury claims accounted for 99 percent of the payouts for tort cases — an umbrella term for civil disputes involving personal or property negligence.
Some of the payouts went to compensate serious-injury victims such a police officer who was left a quadriplegic after the cop car in which he was traveling struck a pole.
But the largest settlement — $33 million in a class-action suit brought by city inmates alleging they were illegally frisked — was more controversial, given that it was awarded to criminals.
Many smaller sums were doled out for trivial matters, such as to a Long Island woman who got $9,000 after tripping in the Lincoln Center parking lot.
A Post analysis of 1,500 pre-litigation settlements uncovered these over-the-top situations:
* An inmate, José Quinones, turned his visit to the clink into a hefty chunk of cash after returning to Rikers Island from Manhattan Criminal Court in 2008 — and slipping on the rain-soaked steps.
The bus driver told him to get out in the rain, his complaint griped, even though he was carrying three large bags and was “handcuffed and chained.”
He fell with “great force and violence,” according to his complaint, and suffered “severe injuries of a permanently disabling nature,” although they weren’t detailed.
Quinones netted $25,000.
* A recovering drug addict, Joseph Pandolfo, made out like a bandit after police accused him of burglarizing his own apartment, causing him “psychological trauma” and “severe humiliation.”
Pandolfo was returning to his Queens home after a stint in rehab in 2008 when he realized he was locked out and had to scale a ladder to climb through his window. According to his lawsuit, two cops arrested him for trespassing, although the case was later thrown out.
Pandolfo landed $40,000.
* A lawyer, Joshua Berry, managed to get enough cash from the city to cover the cost of a wrist exam.
The Manhattan lawyer was riding his bike along the Hudson River in 2008 when he struck a foot-wide chasm in the path. His front wheel got stuck and he strained his wrist.
He billed the city for the $852.45 not covered by his insurance for his X-rays and follow-up work at the posh Hospital for Special Surgery.
“I made no profit from this,” said Berry, 55.
It turns out his wrist wasn’t broken. But if it had been busted, he would have “looked for more money,” Berry boasted.
* A retired teacher, Nadine Agard, says she’s “never been the same” since she fell into a hole in a Bronx park in 2009, although she’s richer for it.
Agard, 62, was at the Bronx Native American Festival in Pelham Bay Park when she “jiggled” into the grassy hole, she said. She is still receiving physical therapy for a herniated disc, she said.
She netted a $750 payout from the city, but she’s not pleased.
“I was legitimately hurt, and this is the crap they gave me,” she fumed.
“I spent my career working for the city, and I can say the city has not treated me well. I’ve gotten royally screwed.”
* An 86-year-old Queens man, Pedro Chapilliquen, ran over an uneven road in his car in 2008 — and it cost the city a pretty penny.
The cracked road in Corona caused Chapilliquen’s car to drop “violently,” resulting in neck and low-back problems that required physical therapy, according to his suit. But “as a result of this accident,” Chapilliquen also alleged that he suffered a stroke and heart failure that required two surgeries and the installation of a pacemaker.
The man demanded $1 million but ending up pocketing only $4,000.
* A 9-year-old girl got a patch of her hair ripped out — and gained a few grand.
The Brooklyn child was a student at PS 26 a when a thuggish classmate pushed her, pulled her hair and ripped out a clump “from her scalp” in 2009, according to her complaint.
The locks grew back, and the girl made “a complete and good recovery.” But the family still socked the city with a claim — and got $5,000 for their pain and suffering. They argued that the school had permitted the student to be “menaced” by other kids and failed to provide enough security guards.
* A desk fell on a second-grader during clean-up time — and the boy promptly cleaned up.
The child was in his Bronx classroom tidying up with other students when the desk dropped on his hand, causing “lacerations” to his left nail bed, in 2010. His parents were awarded $16,500 for the hardship after arguing the city had been negligent.
* Being in the wrong place at the wrong time was gold for one Bronx man.
Michael Laboy was arrested in 2005 and charged with endangering the welfare of a child and harassment while hanging out at a Bronx apartment, he alleged.
He was later released and not charged, but the incident subjected him to “ridicule” and he was “degraded in the esteem of the community,” according to his suit.
He asked for $7 million but took what the city gave him — $15,500.
According to comptroller reports, claims against the NYPD soared 43 percent in the past five years. Those against the Department of Sanitation more than tripled in the same period, and those against the Department of Transportation nearly doubled.
The city apparently expects the suing spree to become even more expensive next year, with the mayor’s 2012 budget allocating $655 million — $135 million more than last year — to settle the avalanche of claims.
Settlement critics, including NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly and City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Queens), have said the city is too quick to settle NYPD cases charging police brutality and wrongful arrest.
“Word gets out on the street that it’s easy money,” said Vallone, a former prosecutor and chair of the council’s Public Safety Committee.
Still, spending on settlements was down 12 percent last year compared to 2001, according to the city Law Department.
“These numbers are proof that risk-management strategies employed over the years are making a difference,” said Law Department spokeswoman Connie Pankratz.
Lawsuit costs are “much less” when claims are settled before going to trial, with city efforts saving taxpayers an estimated $18 million-plus in fiscal year 2010, a Liu spokesman said.
The thorny problem, in part, is the state laws that are lenient on tort cases, said McQuillan, the reform advocate. The Law Department has pressed Albany to tighten its tort rules, Pankratz said, but the situation hasn’t budged.
The Empire State is too quick to include plaintiffs in class-action lawsuits, hear frivolous malpractice cases and allow for some of the largest awards in the country, according to McQuillan.
“The state has done nothing meaningful to rein in tort costs. It’s really seen as a magnet by personal-injury lawyers to submit suits, and that includes New York City,” he said.
CASE # 1
A few thousand bucks smoothed things over for an arts patron who tripped on a bump in the Lincoln Center parking lot.
While on her way to the concert hall in 2008, Abby Behr, 58 slipped up in the public walkway in the north tunnel of the Lincoln Center lot near West 65th Street, she said.
The Oceanside, LI, resident, who is the executive director of the Nassau-Suffolk Performing Arts Center, sued the city, the Parks Department and Lincoln Center after she “became sick, sore, lame and disabled” and sought unspecified medical help, according to her suit.
Her claim of “defective” concrete landed her a cool $9,000.
CASE # 2
Playgrounds should be as safe and soft as a crib, according to one Harlem mom, who successfully sued the city when her daughter got hurt on one.
In September 2005, Jamilah Moody’s daughter was playing in the playground outside her public-housing building on West 125th Street when she grabbed a loose monkey bar, causing her to fall and sustain “severe and serious” injuries, according to the family’s lawyers.
Moody went after the city, the Housing Authority, the Parks Department and the New York Public Library, which helps manage the playground, for the unthinkable crime of “permitting a hard ground surface to exist” under the monkey bars.
Moody was awarded $1,500.
CASE # 3
A kindergartner was chomped on the arm by a classmate – so his mom took a bite out of city coffers.
In 2009, after the tot was nipped by the other child during lunchtime at their Brooklyn elementary school, his mother, Ankhana Ward, put in a claim with the city for the $50 co-pay she had to shell out at the emergency room. She got the dough.
Then, when her unlucky son was bitten by another pint-sized pupil in April, Ward filed yet another claim and recouped a second $50 co-pay.
She told The Post that she deserved the 100 smackers because schools “should be a place that are safe for kids.
“It’s a precaution,” said Ward, 50, of her son’s emergency-room treatment. “I don’t want my son to get an infection.”
Additional reporting by Kathianne Boniello and Susan Edelman