PUBLIC Advocate Betsy Gotbaum stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Mayor Bloomberg this week to support measures he’s pushing in the City Council that would reduce the city’s $40 million a year tab in sidewalk-injury lawsuits.
But Gotbaum is opposing a far more sweeping proposal in Albany that the mayor says would “restore fairness and balance” to the process of suing the city.
That proposal, also backed by Gov. Pataki, would require that many lawsuits brought against the city be heard before a single judge at the Court of Claims instead of before Civil Court juries.
The city paid out $550 million last year to settle lawsuits.
The Court of Claims already has jurisdiction over lawsuits brought against the state, as the mayor has noted.
The city is asking for nothing more than equal treatment, Bloomberg said.
What’s more, he added, “Juries behave very differently in the five boroughs. [In] two, the awards tend to be very disproportionate to the other three. That’s not fair either.”
But Gotbaum isn’t buying that argument.
“The court reforms at the state level is Pataki continuing his attacks on New York City’s most vulnerable population, and the public advocate is not supporting this effort,” said Anat Jacobson, Gotbaum’s spokeswoman.
Mayoral aides said Gotbaum clued them in on her position before declaring her support for two bills in the council that would make it tougher to sue the city in “slip and fall” cases.
“You take what you can get,” sighed one mayoral aide.
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Aides to City Council Speaker Gifford Miller are scratching their heads over Mayor Bloomberg’s assessment of Miller’s future.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Bloomberg said he thought Miller wouldn’t challenge him in 2005, but might run for Manhattan borough president.
That would be a considerable comedown, considering that borough presidents have little power and council speaker is the second-most powerful person in city government after the mayor.
“It sounds to me like Bloomberg is playing into the notion that Miller’s young and ought to wait,” said one council insider.
In fact, the insider said, Miller is “thinking through his options, and one of them is mayor.”
Miller, the city’s fastest rising political star, would be 35 years old in 2005.