Wall Street Journal: Mamdani Is Mugged by the Plaintiff Bar

By: The Editorial Board

Here’s a nominee for anomalous story of the year: New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration is suing a personal injury law firm for phony injury claims.

The city claims in an 80-page RICO suit filed Sunday that the law firm Asher & Associates has developed a niche practice “seeking damages for ‘severe and serious personal injuries to mind and body’” that the defendants “falsely attribute to the City’s negligent roadway maintenance.”

The lawsuit says the law firm represents clients “with bona fide personal injuries but caused by unknown or impecunious actors, or self-inflicted.” The firm nonetheless sought to hold the city “responsible for paying lucrative settlements or judgments.” The lawsuit details 15 examples dating to 2017 in which injured individuals tell medical attendants a different story than the one the law firm relates in its injury claims against the city.

The firm’s claims “characteristically begin with a recitation of their client’s lawful traverse of a City roadway, usually by motorized scooter, bicycle, or motorcycle who encounters a ‘defective, cracked, misleveled, broken, warped, elevated, depressed, or uneven’ City roadway that devolves into a hospital emergency room visit,” the lawsuit says.

Other examples in the suit: One motorcyclist told an ER he injured an ankle jumping off his bike to avoid a car. After getting treated, the motorcyclist continued to ride with a cast and suffered injuries in two more accidents, which he told medical professionals involved cars. The law firm faulted a “roadway defect” and demanded $3 million.

Another man told the hospital ER he injured his knee after a car stopped in front of his electric scooter. The law firm claimed he “struck a defect in the roadway causing him to fall.” Another man said at the ER that he fell off his e-bike after swerving to avoid a car and acknowledged drinking alcohol prior to the accident. The firm faulted the city’s roads. One man told a hospital he was hit with a lead pipe in a fight. The law firm declared in its filing against the city that he tripped on a sidewalk.

The city claims the law firm is “presently burdening the courts and the City’s Law Department” with hundreds of such cases and also sued “dozens of utility companies and paving contractors.”

The lawsuit says all of this violates the city and state false-claims law and amounts to racketeering. The alleged conspiracy involves unnamed “‘runners’ who solicit and provide clients willing to advance and stand behind fabricated narratives” and “litigation funders that seek profit from eventual judgments or settlements by fronting litigation expenses.” The claims are forcing the city “to expend money to defend itself in lawsuits in which the City had no liability as a matter of fact or law.”

Join the club of legal abuse victims. Uber, FedEx and auto insurers have also filed racketeering suits against plaintiff firms and their abettors for allegedly fabricating and exaggerating injuries. Businesses in New York and across the U.S. cite litigation abuse as one of their top problems. Dubious claims increase legal and insurance costs. These are passed onto consumers or, in the case of New York City and other localities, taxpayers.

Gov. Kathy Hochul this year championed modest reforms to curb legal abuse. The reforms will help, but more are needed, including fixing the state’s scaffold law that holds property owners and contractors fully liable for gravity-related construction injuries even if a worker is at fault. The law increases project insurance premiums by some 6%, which gets baked into the price of new housing.

Asher & Associates didn’t respond to our request for comment. Perhaps the mayor will now muster some sympathy for businesses mugged in similar schemes.