City Is Paying Out Less Money To Plaintiffs, Report Shows
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The city is disbursing less and less money in recent years to settle lawsuits and pay court judgments, a report released yesterday by the office of the comptroller shows.
For years, the city’s payments to plaintiffs have amounted to roughly 1% of its budget. In the last fiscal year, the total value of such payments decreased for the third year in a row, according to the report. During the 2006 fiscal year, the city paid out $496.4 million, down from a high of $589 for 2001. The figures also include payouts in personal injury cases settled before reaching court.
Whether the trend holds depends entirely on the outcome of a few major court cases. The city currently faces suits from recovery and cleanup workers at ground zero, who are seeking up to $4 billion for claims that they became ill after exposure to toxins. The city also faces a potentially costly class action suit brought by protesters who say they were wrongly arrested during the 2004 Republican National Convention.
The statistics do suggest that recent strategies both by the comptroller’s office and the city law department to settle some cases early on and avoid trial are working.
Overall, the number of new claims filed last year against the city, either in court or with the comptroller’s office, was at a 10-year low of 24,155.
A decade ago the number of claims reached 30,680, according to the data. While the greatest percentage of last year’s claims were against the Department of Transportation, medical malpractice complaints against public hospitals proved the most costly, costing $155.2 million last year. Payouts from accidents involving police and other city vehicles were the second most expensive last year, costing the city $66.1 million. Trip and fall cases came next, at $55.5 million.
Despite the downward trend in the overall cost to the city, each claim is actually growing in value. The average payout to each plaintiff last year was $68,400, an increase on average of more than $7,500 from the 2005 data, according to the report.
The number of claims against the police department for alleged civil rights violations fell 15% last year to 2,211, from 2,588 the year before.
The comptroller’s office did not return a call for comment.
