N.J. court throws out $7.7M award for woman who fell in PATH station

By Salvador Rizzo/The Star-Ledger
April 04, 2013 at 3:21 PM

JERSEY CITY ? A state appeals court today threw out a $7.7 million verdict in favor of a Jersey City doctor who slipped and broke her elbow at a PATH station in 2007.

The court said the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the PATH trains and their stations, can?t be held liable unless passengers are injured while riding, boarding or leaving a train.

Falling somewhere else in the station doesn?t cut it, the court said, ordering a new trial.

?Because (the doctor) was injured while walking through a corridor and not while riding in or embarking or debarking from a train, the trial judge erred when he instructed the jury that the Port Authority owed plaintiff the duty to ?use the utmost caution to protect their passengers,?? Judge Clarkson Fisher wrote for the three-judge panel.

The doctor, Soma Mandal, 41, was commuting to her job as an internist at New York University Medical Center when she slipped and fell on a ramp at Pavonia Station. She won $7.7 million in damages from a trial jury in 2010 after arguing that the injury partially incapacitated her dominant arm, which in turn made her lose business.

The jury said the Port Authority was responsible for 75 percent of the award, while the contractor in charge of cleaning the train station was liable for 25 percent.

Mandal?s attorney, Christopher Hager, said the ruling defies more than a century of established law protecting rail passengers.

"A railroad has a heightened duty of care for a passenger once a passenger enters the doorway and pays the ticket with the intention to get on the train, which is exactly what happened here," he said.

He added that Mandal was considering an appeal to the state Supreme Court, because the appellate ruling today set a precedent that "disregarded what the Supreme Court had to say on this subject for over a century."

The Port Authority declined to comment.

The appeals court noted that the Port Authority's ?duty to a patron extends throughout the station, and indeed, even beyond its perimeter.?

"But any change in the level of care depends on the location of the incident," Fisher wrote.

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