Baltimore Jury Finds Transit Agency Negligent After Teen Pushed Under Light Rail at Artscape Crowd Surge
After trial: Maryland's cap on noneconomic damages ($740,000 for a 2011 injury) reduces the jury's $2,000,001 total to roughly $1.74 million. We found no appeal or post-trial ruling and could not confirm whether any other limit on claims against the State applied.
Won by Iamele & Iamele and Powers & Powers P.A..
A Baltimore City jury found the Maryland Transit Administration negligent after a 17-year-old was pushed onto and under a Light Rail train by a crowd surge at the Cultural Center stop following Artscape in July 2011. His left leg was reconstructed after 11 surgeries. The jury awarded him about $1.62 million and his mother about $380,000 in past medical expenses, a total of $2,000,001. Maryland's cap on noneconomic damages trims the award.
What happened
On the night of July 16, 2011, a 17-year-old boy was waiting at the Cultural Center Light Rail stop at Howard and Preston streets in Baltimore for the last southbound train after Artscape. The platform there is about nine feet wide. As the train pulled in, the crowd surged forward. The only room to move was toward the tracks, and he was pushed onto the coupling between two cars and then under one of them.
He was taken to the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center. His heel and ankle were so badly damaged that he nearly lost his left foot, and surgeons ultimately had to reconstruct his entire left leg. He has had 11 surgeries.
The family sued the Maryland Transit Administration in Baltimore City Circuit Court in May 2013. The complaint said the agency had put three of its police officers at the stop to manage the crowd and provide security, and that they stood talking among themselves and paid little attention to the platform. It also said that when a friend asked for help getting him to a hospital, an officer suggested putting him on the train. The friend called for an ambulance and was arrested for disorderly conduct, a charge dropped a month later.
Anton L. Iamele of Iamele & Iamele LLP tried the case with Troy Powers of Powers & Powers P.A., both of Baltimore. The trial ran 10 days before Judge Pamela J. White. Plaintiffs' counsel called MTA officers to the stand for a full week to show that the agency had crowd-control procedures and protocols that were not followed. The defense questioned the boy's account, including whether he had gone under the train at all, and officers testified that they saw him coming out from beneath it.
The jury of five women and one man deliberated for six hours over two days and returned its verdict on August 1, 2014. It awarded the young man $1,620,219.57, of which $1,000,097 was for noneconomic damages. It awarded his mother $379,781.43 for his past medical expenses, for a total of $2,000,001.
Maryland law capped noneconomic damages at $740,000 for a claim arising in 2011, so the noneconomic portion could not stand at the full amount the jury returned. With the cap applied, the young man's award comes to about $1.36 million, and with his mother's award the total is about $1.74 million. His mother was described by counsel as very moved by the outcome. Defense counsel for the agency declined to comment.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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