''Seong Sil Kim v. New York City Transit Authority'' is a lawsuit in which a woman who laid down on subway tracks in 2000 in an apparent suicide attempt was first awarded over after a train hit her. The

New York City Transit Authority The New York City Transit Authority (also known as NYCTA, the TA, or simply Transit, and branded as MTA New York City Transit) is a New York state public-benefit corporations, public-benefit corporation in the U.S. state of New York (state), New ...

appealed, and in 2006 the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division,

First Department The First Department (russian: Первый отдел) was in charge of secrecy and political security of the workplace of every enterprise or institution of the Soviet Union that dealt with any kind of technical or scientific information (p ...

overturned the jury verdict and dismissed the case.

Context

On May 3, 2000, Seong Sil Kim lay down on the subway tracks just north of 34th Street on the West Side of

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. Soon thereafter she was hit by an train and was nearly killed. She suffered traumatic amputation of the right hand except for the thumb; multiple skull and facial bone fractures; fractures to the right radius (bone), radius; fractured left toes; and lacerations of the face, abdomen, and leg, resulting in permanent scarring.''New York Law Journal'', June 10, 2002. Kim then sued the New York City Transit Authority for negligence and substantial damages.

Lawsuit

In the subsequent trial, it was revealed that a passenger called '9-1-1' about six minutes before the accident, saying that he had seen a person lying on the tracks. Train operators were notified immediately, and the driver of the E train was moving between when he saw Kim and tried to stop the train before reaching her. That was an appropriate speed for the New York City Subway "caution" alert under which his train was operating. However, Kim's lawyers presented an expert witness who calculated that the operator should have been able to stop his train in time had he been going or less, under an "extreme caution" alert. Through a translator, Kim claimed to have no memory of how she ended up on the tracks. However, she was north of the platform, so she could not have fallen there. She lay on the tracks in the tunnel for at least 24 minutes before her encounter with the train. Kim had given birth two months before the event, and the city submitted evidence that she was suffering from postpartum depression. Kim initially won her lawsuit, and a sympathetic jury awarded her $14.1 million. However, the judge reduced the amount because the jury apportioned Kim with 30% responsibility for her own injury, leaving her with $9.9 million. Her lawyer, David Dean, of the law firm of Sullivan Papain Block McGrath & Cannavo, said, "How she got there was less important than the obligations of the operator. You still have an obligation to operate a train safely, and this guy just didn't." Following a post-trial motion, the damage award was further reduced to $5 million. Finally in 2006, a panel of appellate judges ruled 4–1 that there was legally insufficient evidence to support a finding of Transit Authority negligence or to establish which of several possible trains caused Kim's injuries. The trial judge was reversed, the jury verdict vacated, and the complaint dismissed.

References

External links

* {{New York City Subway, state=collapsed New York Supreme Court cases United States tort case law 2006 in United States case law 2006 in New York (state) 2006 in case law 2006 in rail transport Railway case law New York City Subway City of New York litigation