City’s $1B in lawsuit payouts
Injured Bravest among beneficiaries
The city spent more than $1 billion to settle claims and lawsuits in fiscal year 2017, with the biggest payouts going to Black Sunday firefighters and their families, wrongfully convicted New Yorkers and people hurt by cops.
The staggering sum — $1.018 billion — was a hair less than the record $1.020 billion paid in fiscal year 2016, City Comptroller Scott Stringer says in a report to be released Tuesday.
Payments for personalinjury and property damage rose by nearly 6 percent, the fifth year in a row of rising costs.
On the positive side, Stringer touted a 7 percent drop in the number of new tort claims filed.
“Fewer claims mean city agencies are working to improve their operations and this should reduce the costs of settlements and judgments down the road,” Stringer said.
The city was socked with an $84.5 million tab to settle 11 cases of people jailed for crimes they didn’t commit.
The biggest wrongful-conviction payment, $26 million, went to Antonio Yarbough and Sharrif Wilson, who spent 21 years in prison for a 1992 triple murder. Both were freed in 2014 after new DNA evidence cleared them.
Another $20.4 million was paid for unjust convictions after a 1980 Park Slope arson and murder. Two men who spent 32 years behind bars and the family of a third who died in prison got the settlements. Other payouts include:
$29.5 million for the families of two deceased firefighters, John Bellew and Joseph DiBernardo, and three who were critically injured — Eugene Stolowski, Jeffrey Cool and Brendan Cawley. The five had jumped from a blazing apartment on the fifth floor of a Bronx building on Jan. 23, 2005, a tragedy dubbed Black Sunday. DiBernardo survived the fall but died six years later from his injuries.
Lt. Curtis Meyran also died in the fall but was not part of this settlement.
The men sued the city for failing to provide ropes, which would have enabled the trapped officers to escape safely. A Bronx jury awarded the five men $183 million, but the city appealed, prompting the settlements.
All firefighters received “personal safety systems” after the tragedy, the FDNY said.
$6.9 million for Joseph Felice, shot six times in 2014 by a drunk, off-duty NYPD officer, Brendan Cronin, who recklessly fired his service revolver into Felice’s car while stopped at a red light in New Rochelle.
$5.8 million to the family of Bradley Ballard, a mentally ill and diabetic Rikers inmate found dead in his cell naked and without medication or water.
Meanwhile, payments for claims such as false arrest and excessive force rose by 10 percent, to $308 million. But new claims against the NYPD dropped by 14 percent, a third consecutive annual decline.
“Cops are listening,” staffer said of the dip.
Stringer tracks claims against the NYPD, Correction and other departments to look for patterns of misconduct and mistakes so that brass can nip problems in the bud. a