Pemberton v. New York City Transit Authority
| Decision Date | 03 April 2003 |
| Citation | 304 A.D.2d 340,758 N.Y.S.2d 29 |
| Court | New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division |
| Parties | RICHARD PEMBERTON, Appellant,<BR>v.<BR>NEW YORK CITY TRANSIT AUTHORITY, Respondent. |
This personal injury action against the Transit Authority is based on an incident that occurred on February 23, 1999 at approximately 7:20 P.M. at the 14th Street, Union Square subway station. Plaintiff, a 43-year-old male, five feet, eight inches tall and weighing 205 pounds, wearing a size nine shoe, was returning home from work, accompanied by a coworker, on the number 4 northbound express train. Plaintiff was standing alongside the third door of the first car, which was crowded at the time the train pulled into the 14th Street station. When the train stopped, plaintiff stepped out of the car to allow other passengers to alight. As he did so, his right foot fell into a gap between the exit door and the platform, which was curved at that point, causing his right leg, up to the middle of his thigh, to fall between the train and platform. As a result, plaintiff fell backwards on his buttocks, twisting his leg and knee and sustaining injury to his right knee that required surgery. Eventually, plaintiff was able to remove his leg from the gap and, with the aid of two unidentified males, was taken to a safe location. Plaintiff, who estimated the width of the gap to be more than six inches, observed that the gap between the platform and the door from which he exited progressively widened at the south side of the door. His coworker estimated the width of the gap to be approximately eight inches. It is uncontroverted that there were no warning signs or announcements alerting passengers to the fact that the train was stopping on a curve or of the existence of a gap between the subway car and platform.
According to the Transit Authority's standard guidelines, the maximum allowable horizontal gap on a straight platform is six inches. The only standard for curved platforms with respect to horizontal gaps is that the gap between the train and platform be large enough to accommodate a train's passage without hitting the platform. The last preincident measurement survey of the 14th Street station gaps, taken on May 23, 1998, showed the horizontal gaps for the first car on the northbound trains to be 7.25 inches for the first door, 3.25 inches for the second door and 4.75 inches for the third door. The first postincident measurement, conducted on May 20, 2000, showed gaps of 6.00 inches for the first door, 3.00 inches for the second door and 6.00 inches for the third door, all for the R-62 model, the same model measured in May 1998. The difference in measurements between this model and the older model, on which plaintiff was riding, would be a quarter to half an inch greater in the case of the older model. Even with the two surveys, the Transit Authority's expert was unable to determine the measurement of the gaps on the date of the accident. Plaintiff's expert's measurements showed that the distance between...
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