Only in America... Thank you, sleazy lawyers.
According to this story in the New York Post, Thirteen-year-old Ari Kraft was vandalizing the property of the Long Island Railroad when he was struck by a train. Despite the kids' friends attesting to the fact that he was an avid vandal, his parents are claiming that their "Darling little Ari" wasn't a bad kid and that the railroad is to blame because their fences had holes that Ari and other thugs could get through.
So because the LIRR doesn't keep this little punk out, his parents--who apparently failed to teach him not to trespass and damage other people's property--now think that they should get rich courtesy of the railroad, the Transit Authority, and the City of New York. In other words, they basically want to be rewarded for not doing their job as parents. I would love to hear Roger Kraft explain how are the taxpayers responsible for his failure to raise his kid up right or supervise him.
I think that any settlement payment should be conditioned on the rest of the Kraft family leaving the country. They'd do well in France.
Section 3-112 of the New York General Obligation Law authorizes a cause of action against parents/guardians of kids damage property, including grafitti-writing.
ReplyDeleteThe limit is $5,000 (which happens to be the Small Claims limitation).
Therefore, the MTA (of which the LIRR is a part) and/or NYC, if sued, should assert a Section 3-112 counterclaim.
You probably are thinking "Why wait to counterclaim? Why not just sue?" That advice applies to all of the private property owners who were tagged by Ari's grafitti. Get a photo of Ari's grafitti tag, and if it appeared on your walls or trucks or cars or other property within the past 3 years (statute of limitations), then get a bill for the actual repairs (or two signed and detailed estimates), and file a Small Claims action in the Civil Court on Sutphin Boulevard.
Section 3-112 is not well crafted, to be sure. It has several loopholes, such as relief for financially impecunious parents. And it applies to custodial parents (Ari's parents are divorced).
But if you go Small Claims, the case is usually adjudicated rather efficiently, and with little publicity. Which is why MTA and NYC should wait until they are sued. Their Section 3-112 counterclaim would then be heard in the context of a non-Small Claims action, and either party could demand a jury trial (which may or may not be good strategy). In any case, enough questions of fact can be elicited so that there will be no summary judgment, and the fact that Ari was a punk vandal struck down by G-d in the commission of a misdeed could then be played to the judge or jury.
So if I were MTA or NYC, I would wait until the parents sue. Anyone else who was tagged by Ari should wait until Roger and Yaffa get up from sitting shiva, and then drop paper on them!
Note: Ari was not alone. Per other news reports, an accomplice was with him. Read Section 3-112 to the accomplice's parents!
Query: Does the cost of cleaning off the blood from the train count towards the damages covered by Section 3-112?