Were WMATA Negligent in Escalator Maintenance?
One of the crucial elements of proving a negligence case is being able to show that the defendants had prior knowledge of the potential dangers of a product, service or place, but did nothing to warn people or fix the problem.
An example of this can be made with something as simple as a wet floor in a supermarket. If an employee mops the floor in an area and doesn’t put out a sign or markers telling people that the floor is wet, and if a person slips and breaks his leg, that employee could be considered negligent. The employee knows wet floors are dangerous, and he knows there is a spot in the supermarket where the floor is wet. A customer would also know that a wet floor is dangerous and would avoid it if he could, but the problem is that he doesn’t know if the floor is wet or not because the employee didn’t visibly mark the spot. If the customer sees the signs yet trudges on regardless, and then falls and breaks his leg, it could be argued that the employee did everything reasonable to warn the customer of the dangers, so there would not be negligence there.
In a nutshell, that’s the difference between a run-of-the-mill accident and an accident caused by negligence. We think it’s an important distinction. While an accident can be an “act of God,” negligence accidents are “acts of man.”
On October 30, the escalator at the L’Enfant Plaza metro station suffered a system failure. According to the Washington Post, the escalator started speeding uncontrollably, which essentially flung all the riders to the ground at the bottom. The entire Metro system was extremely crowded due to the Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert rally that was taking place on the mall. Just under a million people were riding the trains that day. If anything positive can be taken out of this, it can be that it was a lucky thing that only four people were hurt. Can you imagine what could have happened if the main escalator at Bethesda metro station suddenly sped up? Or the escalator at DuPont Circle? On the most crowded day Metro has had since the Inauguration?
The escalators in the DC Metro systems are notorious for being broken. It is a rare day where a regular commuter can get to work without having to climb up one broken escalator or another. But there is a difference between an escalator not working and an escalator actively malfunctioning while passengers are on it. And what should be mentioned here is that the escalator malfunction at L’Enfant Plaza wasn’t a random occurrence, nor was it unexpected.
A report performed by an independent firm weeks ago concluded that the escalators are dangerous, unstable and in need of repair or replacement. Among some of the more relevant passages:
- Major amounts of oil and lubricant on step treads and risers. Symptomatic of major leak at drive motor / reducer coupling.
- Significant accumulation of metal shavings around hand rail newel areas from worn newel wheels.
- Brake pads worn beyond usable life expectancy and out of adjustment allowing unit to freewheel to stop.
- Numerous switches in safety circuits were dirty, out of adjustment, and ineffective.
- Skirt panels were adjusted too tightly to the steps, creating metal shavings along the step roller tracks in the interior of the unit.
- Hoist ropes severely rouged [corroded] and worn beyond acceptable life expectancy.
- Sheet plastic being used to protect equipment from water intrusion. This is a critical life safety issue.
Metro authorities had this draft in their hands on September 30th, which was a full month before the accident happened. So how can they make the standard defense against negligence, which is “We simply didn’t know?” They can’t make the claim that the escalator malfunction was a surprise to them when an independent report commissioned by them on the state of their escalators specifically warned that an incident like the October 30th disaster was likely to happen. The argument could easily be made that WMATA was negligent in maintaining its escalators, and that they knew about the danger that these escalators posed to riders for a full month before the incident took place.
Greenberg and Bederman is a personal injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland, and we are currently offering legal assistance to injury victims all over the Washington, D.C. and Baltimore areas. If you have been injured due to reasons that were not your fault, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free legal consultation.
![BlogSearch.com](<A HREF="http://www.blog-search.com"> <IMG SRC="http://www.blog-search.com/images/smallbutton.gif" WIDTH=80 HEIGHT=15 BORDER=0 ALT="Blog Search: The Source for Blogs"></A>...){kind=link}