Gothamist reports that a 16-year old lost his leg while writing graffiti in a subway tunnel in Brooklyn. Oops!
Some cynical but astute Gothamist readers have wondered when he’s going to file suit (actually, it would be his legal guardians who would do so). Count on it.
About 15 years ago, I served as foreman in a suit against the Transit Authority by someone, who as a 16-year old, mugged a woman on a Chinatown subway platform, and ran into the tunnel to escape.
As he hid, a train stuck him and his foot was cut off (the motorman didn’t even know it happened until he reached the end of his route).
The youth received an artificial foot while in jail. It came out during the trial, that after his release, and now an adult, he continued to try to rob people in the subway — though he used a crutch in the courtroom, so I’m not sure how successful he was.
When it came time to deliberate, we had a snap-vote. Five of us voted to give the guy nothing, but one juror, a proto-slacker, who seemed to have his eyes closed during a good portion of the trial, disagreed. There was a little old black lady on the jury; I thought she was about to leap from her seat and throttle him.
I said, “Look, before you think this is going to be 12 Angry Men, this is a civil trial; we don’t need to be unanimous. We can be done right now, but I think it would be nice if we could all agree.”
It was late in the afternoon when we started, so we decided we’d go home for the day. The next morning, we all showed up on time except for our hold-out. When we finally got into the jury room, he simply said, “Well, I think he should get something.”
I said, “Where do you think this ‘something’ comes from?” He shrugged. We voted again, and this time it was 6-0.
Appreciated!
Posted by: PBK | February 17, 2010 at 06:59 PM
You did good.
Posted by: joe | February 17, 2010 at 05:09 PM