NYC Subway System Needs Guardrails, Class Action Lawsuit Claims

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A class action lawsuit against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA) claims the NYC subway is dangerous to passengers.

Plaintiff Mary West says she was injured when she accidentally fell through the gap between the subway platform and the train at the West 23rd street stop near her home in New York City.

West alleges that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the New York City Transit Authority’s failure to take adequate measures to ensure that the New York Subway is safe for passengers represents negligent systematic practices and defective design.

She seeks damages for herself and others, claiming personal injury, pain and suffering, disability from usual activities, and financial injury.

The NYC subway class action lawsuit claims that when West fell through the gap between the platform and the train, her leg was bruised and cut. She does not allege to be permanently injured, but cites numerous examples of when other passengers were gravely injured or killed as a result of the alleged lack of safety precautions in place in the New York City subway system.

West states that the defective design “of the Subway and its platforms create substantial risk of injury or death, and [West] was in fact injured due to this defective design. Furthermore, this risk has deterred her and [other passengers] from full enjoyment of the Subway. Both before and after her injury on May 5, 2017, [West] has suffered anxiety when using the Subway due to its unsafe design.”

The unsafe New York City subway class action lawsuit claims that over the years, the MTA and the NYCTA have received numerous reports of passenger injury caused by the subway’s allegedly unsafe design. Specifically, these complaints point to the lack of platform guardrails as being central to the system’s alleged danger.

The NYC subway class action lawsuit cites a request by David Jones, a board member of MTA that “transit officials look into platform carriers to figure out a cost, timetable implementation and key stations where they could be installed.” West uses this statement in conjunction with the numerous consumer reports of injury to argue that the MTA and the Transit Authority know that the subway system is dangerous and deliberately have not taken steps to solve the problem.

West goes on to claim that the MTA and Transit Authority not only know of the danger, but have the financial means to make the subway system safer for passengers, yet actively choose not to. She states that the MTA and Transit Authority’s advertisements to “stand away from the platform edge” are insufficient safety measures.

Finally, the MTA and Transit Authority subway class action lawsuit cites numerous examples of other subway systems around the world in which safety measures have been implemented to great effect. The unsafe subway class action lawsuit claims that platform screen doors have been installed in cities like Paris, Rome, London, Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai, and that “New York is comparable to these cities in population and resources, yet its subway system lags conspicuously behind.”

West is represented by C.K. Lee and Anne Seelig of the Lee Litigation Group PLLC.

The New York City Subway Class Action Lawsuit is Mary West v. Metropolitan Transportation Authority, et al., is Case No. 1:18-cv-01743, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.