When a train strikes a person,
the case that follows is unlike any other.

Senior District Judge Frederic Block denied the Transit Authority's motion for summary judgment on three of four counts, holding that the TA acted in a proprietary rather than governmental capacity — defeating government function immunity as a matter of law — and that genuine disputes of material fact precluded summary judgment on qualified immunity and on the negligence claims relating to train operation, platform barriers, and track intrusion devices.

Judge Block certified the defendants' interlocutory appeal as frivolous, holding that New York state law immunity defenses confer only immunity from liability — not immunity from suit — and therefore fall outside the collateral order doctrine. The court retained jurisdiction and ordered the case to proceed to trial.

Federal jury verdict of approximately $81.7 million for a passenger who fainted on the Atlantic Avenue–Barclays Center platform, fell to the tracks, and suffered catastrophic limb loss. The verdict was the first in the United States holding a transit authority liable for failing to install platform edge barriers or screen doors.

Second Department affirmed leave to amend the complaint to add a negligent-design theory based on the Transit Authority's failure to install platform edge barriers or screen doors, holding that the timely notice of claim gave the Transit Authority notice of the design theory and that the relation-back doctrine applied.

Justice Lawrence Knipel, on reargument, directed defendants to answer each subsection of item 7(a-g) of plaintiff's bill of particulars regarding their qualified immunity affirmative defense — rather than responding with a single consolidated paragraph — and to produce documents responsive to plaintiff's discovery demands for the years 2014, 2015, and 2016. The order was subsequently affirmed by the Second Department in 2025.

Second Department affirmed an order compelling the Transit Authority to produce outstanding discovery related to its qualified immunity defense, issued upon reargument.

Supreme Court compelled system-wide gap-accident discovery under penalty of preclusion and separately precluded the Transit Authority from asserting a qualified immunity defense it had never pleaded in nearly seven years of litigation.

First Department decided companion platform-gap appeals addressing the scope of system-wide gap-accident discovery.

Justice Joseph Risi granted reargument and amended a prior discovery ruling, directing the Transit Authority to produce all photographs and videos of the gap at the 82nd Street Station's 7 line for the three years preceding plaintiff's September 2015 fall, and — critically — all gap-related studies, reports, accidents, and injuries system-wide across the entire New York City Subway System for the same period. The court further ordered that if any such records no longer exist, the Transit Authority must provide an affidavit from a person with personal knowledge explaining whether the documents ever existed, how they were disposed of or deleted, and why they no longer exist. The Second Department affirmed in 2024.

Second Department addressed the scope of system-wide gap-related discovery in a platform-gap case involving a fall at the 82nd Street station in Queens in September 2015.