A 78-year-old woman filed a lawsuit Monday seeking $934,474 in damages after she fell and fractured her femur and suffered other injuries while buying a ticket onboard the Portland Streetcar last year.
Vincenza Scarpaci is suing the city, TriMet, the Portland Streetcar and the transit driver in Multnomah County Circuit Court relating to a May 2018 incident.
According to the lawsuit, Scarpaci boarded the streetcar at Southwest 11th Avenue and Clay Street on May 30, 2018 and started to buy a ticket on-board. Passengers can buy fares on-board the streetcar through a vending machine, unlike MAX light rail trains.
While she was reading the instructions of how to ride, Scarpaci said she was standing in the center aisle within view of the streetcar operator. Scarpaci alleges the streetcar operator “abruptly and without warning” pulled away from the station while she was still standing, causing Scarpaci to lose her balance and fall.
She fractured her femur, injured her left hip, aggravated osteoarthritis in her left knee and hip, and suffered anxiety and depression as a result of the incident, the lawsuit claims. Scarpaci said she incurred $214,474.37 in medical costs as a result of her injuries and expects to spend another $20,000 on medical care. She is seeking an additional $700,000 because she suffered “permanent injury” and “severe pain and distress” to her daily life as a result of the incident.
Portland’s City Attorney Office declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.
Scarpaci said the streetcar operator pulled away without notifying her, creating an “unreasonably dangerous hazard,” especially as she was still standing trying to pay her fare.
The lawsuit alleges having a vending machine on a moving train, which requires “use of both hands to obtain a ticket,” is dangerous in and of itself.
Streetcar riders aren’t required to buy a fare on-board the vehicles. Users can buy tickets on the platform or by using the Hop Fastpass system, which allows riders to pre-load money on a transit pass and pay every time they ride streetcar or TriMet trains or buses. The streetcar has a Hop card reader onboard.
TriMet is transitioning away from its paper tickets, though riders will still be able to pay with cash on buses.
Portland Streetcar has “no immediate plans to do away with on-board vending, as we still sell paper Streetcar-only passes,” spokesman Andrew Plambeck said in an email. The transit service will discuss – with its board and other relevant stakeholders like TriMet’s committee on accessible transportation -- whether to include on-board machines on future streetcar vehicles, but there is no time table in place.
-- Andrew Theen
503-294-4026
@andrewtheen
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