Brooklyn Jury Awards Paralyzed Cyclist $110.17 Million Against NYC Transit

On April 10, 2016, Robert Liciaga, 23, was riding his bicycle north on Broadway in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. An elevated trestle carrying the J and M trains ran above the street. That morning a New York City Transit Authority crew was replacing track ties on the structure overhead. Two barricades had been moved aside and left unguarded. A worker waved Liciaga forward, and he rode directly beneath the work zone.

As he passed under the tracks, the crew released a railroad tie that was about ten feet long and weighed hundreds of pounds. It fell onto his back. The impact fractured his spine at the T9-10 level and severed his spinal cord. Liciaga has no movement or feeling below the T7 level. He is paraplegic, uses a wheelchair, and was told he would need long-term care for the rest of his life.

Scott Occhiogrosso and Daniel O'Toole of Block O'Toole & Murphy tried the case in Kings County Supreme Court. They put the Transit Authority's own safety rules in front of the jury and laid out nine separate failures by the crew, from leaving the barricades open to dropping the tie without clearing the area below. Their argument was simple: the agency waved Liciaga into a drop zone and gave him no warning of the work going on over his head.

On April 4, 2019, the jury found the NYC Transit Authority 100 percent responsible and returned $110,174,972.38, reported at the time as the largest non-medical-malpractice verdict in New York history. The award broke down into $9 million for past pain and suffering, $60 million for future pain and suffering, and $40 million for future medical expenses. Occhiogrosso told reporters, "Robert's standard of living is forever diminished because the NYCTA failed to take reasonable measures to protect the public."

The agency appealed and asked the trial court to cut the award. The court reduced the pain and suffering figures to $4 million for the past and $12 million for the future. In August 2024 the Appellate Division, Second Department, upheld the finding of liability and rejected the claim that the damages were excessive. It did order a hearing on whether Affordable Care Act coverage should offset the $40 million in future medical costs, and it deleted that part of the judgment pending the hearing. The amended judgment stood at $69,707,337.07. The case settled for an undisclosed amount in April 2025.