Opinion
No. 02 Civ. 3308 (MGC)
August 23, 2002
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Defendant Metropolitan Transportation Authority ("MTA") has moved to dismiss the complaint as barred by the three-year statute of limitations of the Federal Employers Liability Act ("FELA"). See 45 U.S.C. § 56. Plaintiff, a police employee of MTA, sues to recover damages for an injury she allegedly suffered on August 23, 1998, while on duty patrolling MTA property. The complaint was filed on April 30, 2002.
Plaintiff, who received workers' compensation payments throughout her convalescence, argues that the doctrine of equitable estoppel bars defendant from asserting the defense of statute of limitations because defendant misled her about her ability to sue under FELA. In support of her argument, plaintiff filed an affidavit in which she states the following: 1) two MTA employees told her in the two-month period immediately following her injury that she could not sue MTA and that workers' compensation was her only recourse; 2) she was out of work due to her injuries from mid-November 1998 to December 27, 2000; 3) upon her return, several fellow MTA police employees told her that she could no longer sue MTA for her work-related injuries; and 4) the MTA sent her "for periodic examinations by their compensation doctors." Plaintiff's argument rests on the Second Circuit's affirmance of Judge Wexler's decision in Greene v. Long Island Rail Road Co., 99 F. Supp.2d 268 (E.D.N.Y. June 2, 2000), aff'd, 280 F.3d 224 (2d Cir. February 11, 2002). Judge Wexler held in Greene, for the first time, that MTA was an employer subject to suit under FELA.
However, plaintiff does not state that any authorized MTA representative told her that she could not sue under FELA. Plaintiff states that 1) several police officers, her co-workers, told her at various times that she could not sue MTA, and 2) MTA directed her to "compensation doctors" even following the Greene decision. Neither of these allegations amounts to an affirmative statement by an authorized MTA representative that plaintiff could not sue under FELA.
Furthermore, plaintiff's reliance on defendant's statements must have been reasonable. Wall v. Constr. Laborers' Union, Local 230, 224 F.3d 168, 176 (2d Cir. 2000) . Plaintiff had the same access to information as any other employee of MTA, including the plaintiff in Greene. Indeed, plaintiff was deposed in a fellow employee's FELA lawsuit, Capasso v. MTA, 00 Civ. 1108 (Pauley, J.), on April 18, 2001, after Judge Wexler's decision in Greene and several months before the expiration of the statute of limitations on her claim. Nevertheless, she waited for twenty-two months after the Greene decision before filing suit. Under these circumstances, plaintiff's reliance on the unauthorized statements of her fellow co-workers was not reasonable. Plaintiff has not met the requirements for the application of equitable estoppel.
Defendant's motion to dismiss the complaint as time-barred is granted.
SO ORDERED.