State must pay $400K for former inmate's eye injury
ALBANY – The state must pay more than $400,000 to an ex-inmate from Washington County because it failed to provide him with safety goggles before an outdoor prison work assignment during which a piece of metal became stuck in his eyeball.
A judge put the damages Chad Cody suffered at $450,000, with the state 70 percent responsible. But he ruled Cody was 30 percent responsible for the injury because he did not ask the correction officer in charge of the assignment if the goggles were available.
That lessened the award, according to the decision filed Thursday by state Court of Claims Judge Christopher J. McCarthy.
The official award was $315,000. When added to the interest gathered since the judge rendered his ruling on liability on Feb. 15, 2015, it equaled more than $400,000, according to Kevin Luibrand, Cody's attorney.
Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/news/article/State-must-pay-400K-for-inmates-s-eye-injury-12511463.php