Ground Zero gawker sues for garbage-truck injury
A freelance photographer who suffered brain damage after falling off a garbage truck he climbed atop to take pictures of Ground Zero is suing the carting company for $50 million.
Lawyers for the victim, Robert Levin, accuse Waste Management LLP and its truck driver of "failure to respect the plaintiff's rights as a pedestrian," according to court papers filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court.
The carting company's attorney said Levin's own "negligence, carelessness and recklessness" caused him to fall off the truck on Dec. 19, 2001, at 1:40 a.m.
Levin sneaked on top of the truck, which was parked near Greenwich and Carlisle Sts. in lower Manhattan, to get a better view of the site of the terrorist attack.
"Obviously, he never thought in a million years the truck would move, so I don't think his actions were negligent," said Levin's lawyer Howard Klar of Manhattan.