Mayor Bloomerg (pictured) expressed dismay yesterday over a jury's recent decision to award $2.3 million to 25-year-old Dustin Dibble, who lost part of his right leg under a subway train after falling drunk onto the tracks in 2006. Hizzoner told reporters, "I wasn't sitting in the courtroom. I wasn't on the jury. But on the face of it, you'd think there's a personal responsibility here. And I think a lot of us should be a little more responsible for our own behavior." There he goes again with the responsibility lecture. First, nobody's allowed to smoke, then we all have to confront our calorie intake, now we can't sue the city when we get hurt ourselves stumbling around blotto? If the Mayor doesn't want New Yorkers to drink to excess, shouldn't he just ban booze? Otherwise, how will we know right from wrong? Also, as Dibble's lawyer tells the Post, "This was a preventable accident. The operator himself said he could have stopped." But he didn't because he mistook Dibble for a trash heap. Meanwhile, the Daily News notes that NYC Transit paid out nearly $50 million last year in personal injury lawsuits brought by its riders, a jump of nearly 40% from 2004.
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