Crossland v. NYCTA

In Crossland v. NYCTA, 68 NY2d 165, 506 N.Y.S.2d 670 (1986) a student was brutally beaten to death by a gang on a subway platform while Transit Authority employees stood by and did nothing to summon aid. The Court of Appeals found that such behavior was within the narrow range of circumstances that goes "beyond the boundary of the Weiner immunity." (68 NY2d at 170). The Court of Appeals found that in such an extreme and outrageous fact pattern, the burden that would be imposed upon the government authority by exposure to liability must be balance against other policy considerations which include deterring the public authority from failing to insure that its employees "observe not only its own regulations, but also common standards of behavior" (Id. at 170).