In Garcia v. New York City Transit Authority, the Appellate Division, Second Department held that the trial court should have granted the Transit Authority’s CPLR 4401 motion for judgment as a matter of law on the issue of liability.
Here are the facts:
At approximately 9:50 a.m. on May 22, 2006, the plaintiff’s decedent fell from a New York City subway platform to the track below and sustained head injuries. The decedent was taken to a nearby hospital in a state of semi-consciousness, where she underwent surgery and died. At a trial on the issue of liability, witnesses testified regarding the presence of a crowd on the subway platform at the time of this occurrence, and the role of employees of the defendant New York City Transit Authority (hereinafter the Transit Authority) in controlling crowds on the subway platform.
The jury returned a verdict finding that the Transit Authority was negligent and that its negligence was a proximate cause of the decedent’s injury.
The law provides:
A subway company is not negligent merely because it permits crowds to gather on its platform. Before proof of negligence in this regard may be said to exist, it must be shown that the crowd was so large and unmanaged that a user of the platform was restricted in his free movements or was unable to find a safe standing place, and that as a result of either of those conditions an injury was sustained.
Applying this standard, plaintiff loses:
Here, there is no evidence that the crowd on the subway platform was so large and unmanaged that it restricted the decedent’s freedom of movement to the extent necessary to impose liability on the Transit Authority. The evidence in the record was insufficient to make out a prima facie case of negligence against the Transit Authority and, in effect, was insufficient to establish that any negligence was a proximate cause of the decedent’s injuries.