Bushwick Cyclist Wins $110M After Subway Beam Crushed His Spine

BUSHWICK, BROOKLYN -- A Bushwick cyclist won a $110 million lawsuit against the New York City Transit Authority after a massive beam fell from elevated subway tracks came crashing down and severed his spine, his attorneys announced.

A Brooklyn Jury awarded $110,174,972.38 to Robert Liciaga, 26, nearly three years after the 10-foot railroad tie dropped from the J and M train tracks on Broadway near Myrtle Avenue on April 10, 2016, his attorneys said.

"I knew god was with us today," Liciaga told his attorney, Daniel O'Toole.

"Very simple safety measures would have prevented this accident from happening," added O'Toole, of the law firm Block O'Toole & Murphy. "I hope [the NYC Transit Authority] will take this verdict and say, 'What can we do to prevent this tragedy from happening again?'"

Liciaga was cycling up Broadway when a construction worker signaled to him to keep going underneath track replacement work happening over his head, O'Toole said.

Two barricades had been moved and left unguarded, so Liciaga assumed they were a designated crossway and not a warning meant to keep people away from "the drop zone," said O'Toole.

Liciaga pedaled beneath two transit workers just as they dropped the railroad tie, which weighed "hundreds of pounds," onto the street and onto Liciaga's spine, his lawyer said.

"The next thing he knows he wakes up in a hospital and he's paralyzed," said O'Toole. "He's going to be in a nursing facility for the rest of his life."

The Brooklyn cyclist sued the NYC Transit Authority for the nine safety failures that might have prevented the accident and on April 4 a Brooklyn jury ruled the agency was 100% responsible.

"The hope is this money will provide him a better quality of care," O'Toole said.

NYC Transit officials told the New York Post they plan to appeal.

“This verdict is grossly excessive and we intend to pursue all avenues of appeal,” said MTA Chief External Affairs Officer Maxwell Young in a statement, "In addition to asking the trial court to reduce the award."