United States District Judge Victor Marrero dismissed as untimely a suit brought by a former MTA police officer alleging that he sustained injuries as a result of being exposed to toxic air around the World Trade Center in the days following 9/11. The plaintiff sued HNRK's client, the MTA, in 2007 under the Federal Employers Liability Act ("FELA") alleging that the MTA was negligent in assigning him in 2001 to perform police work in the WTC vicinity with insufficient protection. FELA has a three-year statute of limitations. According to plaintiff, however, he only learned in 2007 that his ailments stemmed from his exposure to the toxic air in 2001 and therefore, under the "discovery rule," his time to commence suit was tolled.

We successfully argued that plaintiff's time to commence his FELA claim was not tolled by the discovery rule. In turns out that plaintiff had settled a previous lawsuit against the MTA in 2004, more than three years prior to this latest suit. In his 2004 suit, he complained of the same injuries, but attributed those injuries to a different negligent act -- in that case, an accident in which he was struck in the head with a pipe. The Court refused to allow plaintiff to sue the same defendant for the same injuries based on a new theory of causation, notwithstanding plaintiff's assertion that he was unaware until recently of the allegedly true cause of his ailments. Agreeing with our argument, the Court held that a FELA cause of action accrues when the plaintiff knows or should know that the injuries he complains of were job-related, even if he is unaware of the true cause of that injury.

The Court also dismissed a separate claim by this plaintiff at our urging. Plaintiff complained that, while out on injury leave as a result of the pipe incident, he was wrongfully subjected to the MTA's sick/injury leave rules, which requires that the injured officer remain at home unless given permission to leave by the Police Department. Plaintiff argued that the MTA's rule was unlawful, but Judge Marrero rejected this claim on the grounds that plaintiff had failed to establish the elements of a FELA claim and failed to explain how he was injured. 



Daniel Bruno v. Metropolitan Transp. Authority, No. 07 Civ. 7503 (S.D.N.Y. April 10. 2008).

In August, HNRK was retained to defend the nation's largest bridge and tunnel authority in a lawsuit brought by an association of trucking companies specializing in hauling sand, gravel and other construction materials across the metropolitan region. The trucking group sued New York's Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority  ("TBTA") after the TBTA refused passage across its bridges to trucks carrying loads beyond the legal limit of 80,000 pounds. The truckers were accustomed to bringing greater loads across the Throgs Neck Bridge but TBTA ordered the weight limit strictly enforced following an inspection of the bridge which revealed significant deterioration and safety issues. The trucking group challenged TBTA's enforcement of the 80,000 pound limit , maintaining that its members were entitled to continue carrying the overweight loads across the Throgs Neck as well as TBTA's other bridges.

HNRK led a team of TBTA bridge engineers and law enforcement officers to the injunction hearing which was held in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, before Justice Paul Feinman. After hearing the evidence, Justice Feinman declined the truckers request for an injunction, sustaining the safety concerns and prerogatives of HNRK's client.

HNRK previously fended off two applications by the trucking group seeking temporary restraining orders pending the hearing on the injunction. The litigation is ongoing.