A few years ago, Intel editor Chris fell down an entire set of stairs in the Sixth Avenue L station, somersaulting a dozen feet out onto the platform and fracturing his ankle. How did something like that happen? The same way it always happens! He was drunk and wearing flip-flops. Anyway, a few weeks later, after he got off his crutches, he was called in for jury duty. The first case he was called for was a woman suing the city after she stepped off a bus and broke her foot because she underestimated the depth of a puddle. Chris snottily explained to the lawyers during jury voir dire that, since he had a painful accident on city property and didn’t sue, he couldn’t possibly support someone else doing the same thing. He’d be too judgey. And he got off the jury!
So how does this story relate to today? Because some dude just successfully won $2.3 million off the MTA (you know, that public agency that is constantly hiking fares on everybody because they are cash-strapped) in a lawsuit. Turns out that an N train ran over his calf and chopped off his foot. Why was he in a situation where that could happen in the first place? Because he was lying on the tracks, blackout drunk.
His lawyer blamed the driver of the train for not stopping quickly enough, but come on — if there are three things that the MTA is perfectly clear about on the NYC subway system, it’s that you shouldn’t block the doors when they are closing, if you see something you should say something, and NEVER EVER GO ON THE TRACKS. We wish we’d been on that jury.
If it’s not clear, by the way, this is us being judgey.
DRUNK RIDES GRAVY TRAIN [NYP]
