Board Agrees to $5.5-Million Settlement for Accident Victim
In the largest such settlement in the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s history, its governing board agreed Thursday to pay $5.5 million to a woman who was severely injured when a bus hit her as she crossed a street in Chinatown.
Miequn Zhu was 14 weeks’ pregnant at the time of the August 1999 accident. That child, born last February, is quadriplegic, blind and deaf, and has to be fed through a tube, an agency spokesman said.
Zhu was hospitalized for two months with a fractured pelvis and injuries to her left leg and hip. She and her husband, David Wong, filed suit against the agency. The case was to have gone to trial in January.
Although there was some dispute about liability in the case, MTA lawyer Steven Carnevale said, “It was an uphill battle to try it.”
The settlement was approved by the MTA board in a closed-door session. The case was added to the board agenda at the last minute as an emergency item, and the matter was never discussed in public.
The MTA will pay $4.5 million of the settlement and its insurance company will pay the rest, Carnevale said.
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