Court gives Transit the big chill.

The Second Department refused to take down a mid-six-figure jury verdict in Anthony v. New York City Transit Authority, decided on March 6, 2007. A police officer, plaintiff was injured when, while responding to a 911 call, he fell on ice which had formed on the bottom step of a stairway. He was down for about thirty minutes, during which time he saw water dripping non-stop from an overhead canopy, and observed that the bottom step was caked with about an inch of ice. The court found that"the jury rationally could have concluded that the subway station cleaner, who was on site on a regular scheduled tour approximately four hours before the accident, would have noticed the ice on the step on which the plaintiff fell in the course of performing his duties. Furthermore, a reasonable inference could be drawn, based on the plaintiff's testimony, that the icy condition existed for a sufficient time to allow the cleaner to discover and remedy it."