If you fall on crumbling stairs at City Hall Plaza and break your arm, tough
The Massachusetts Appeals Court today rejected a lawsuit against the city by a woman who fell on crumbling stairs on City Hall Plaza and suffered "a complex fracture of her wrist" in 2001.
The court held the city was protected from liability by a clause in a state law designed to encourage property owners to open their land - in this case, the plaza - to recreational use. The court ruled the clause applied even though the city admitted the stairs "were crumbling and in need of repair."
The woman argued the clause also didn't apply in her case because she was basically there on business with the city - to scope out the plaza for a religious event, for which her group eventually made a $10,000 donation to a city neighborhood fund.
The court, however, said a donation is not a fee and that the city didn't know she was there, so therefore the event and her visit were "recreational." The justices contrasted that with a hypothetical mason injured while making repairs to the plaza, who could pursue a claim because he was conducting business with the city.
The court added: "On the limited record before us, it does not appear that the failure to repair the crumbling steps due to budgetary constraints is the kind of action or inaction that could be characterized as wilful, wanton, or reckless."
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Not right!
Proves again, what's legal and what's fair often don't match up.
City Hall Plaza
Before everyone goes hog-wild on how the recreational use statue is not fair, consider this: without it, no private land owner in her right mind would ever open her property up to the public. An example? Well you could kiss your wonderful lunch in Post Office Square (which is privately owned) goodbye.
As the case makes clear, the statue applies to public entites as well. If it didn't, you would have been excluded from the Greenway since it was opened because the Turnpike Authority, just as the private owner of Post Office Sq. park, could never have purchased, at an affordable price, enough insurance to guard against its risk. (The Turpike Authority did not have a cap under the Mass. Tort Claims Act. The Greenway which will presumably pass to Mass. DOT on 11/1, will be covered under DOT's cap if the Supplemental Appropriations bill passes. So even though the Greenway will no longer be a good example after 11/1, there are lots of other properties around the state that are are in the same situation as the Greenway/Turnpike has been until now.)
Further, the plaintiff's loss in this case would have been capped anyway by G.L. c. 84 or the Tort Claims Act. While I feel sorry for the woman (whom the City should consider making whole for her expenses), it is a reminder that even in our Republic the sovereign (and its political subdivisions) can only be sued to the extent it allows itself to be.
I Hate to Say it...
... but this woman's best option may be to never hold another event in the City of Boston again if it is not willing to cover her medical expenses. If she was in Boston on business to scope out City Hall Plaza for a future event, she should boycott Boston for future events and urge her organization to stay away from this city. I probably would if I were her in her shoes.
A "mythbuster" of a case.
And I thought people won these cases even when they were more frivolous- like riding a unicycle on an icy winter day and so forth. Crumbling stairs would seem to have been a slam dunk.
Oh that is horrible. A
Oh that is horrible. A similar thing happened to me in 2002. I stumbled into a crumbling concrete crack on Newbury & Exeter (which had been there for years) and severly sprained my ankle. I went to city hall and filed a claim with the city and a year later they awarded me $1000. It was such a nightmare process- I couldn't imagine filing an actual lawsuit. I hope she gets some compensation.
After reading the whole
After reading the whole court document, the decision makes complete sense to me.
Perhaps if she had suffered more grievously (fractured wrist, please), I would have more sympathy. But I can't stop thinking about how such a case would be unthinkable in pretty much every other country on earth. The fact is we are the most litigious society on earth and suffer enormous financial and societal burdens as a result. It's cultural rather than systematic.
Does this mean people should lose the right to sue one another? No, but it means people need to take some degree of personal responsibility and not always be so quick to place blame and get a quick buck out of it at the same time.
More crumbling stairs
Next to the police station at Dudley Square, leading from Washington St to the Court House and BPL Literacy Center. Been like that for at least a year. When will the Urban Mechanic get to these? /snark
More photos, for crumbling stairs afficionados.