Dive Brief:
- Cornell University and the city of Ithaca, NY, have settled a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the father of a student who killed himself in 2010 by jumping off of a bridge.
- Ithaca paid $100,000 and Cornell will set up a perpetual scholarship in the name of the student, Bradley Ginsburg, additionally dedicating a plaque to him on campus, the Ithaca Journal reported.
- The father, Howard Ginsberg, filed the $168 million lawsuit in 2011, claiming that Ithaca and Cornell were negligent because they didn’t build better suicide-prevention features into the city-owned bridge, which spans the Fall River gorge near campus.
Dive Insight:
The lawsuit claimed that the bridge in question had been rebuilt in 2007 with railings that were too low and that Cornell was well aware of the suicide risk: 12 of the 26 suicides on or near campus between 1990 and 2010, before Ginsberg’s death, had been from jumping. The school had six suicides in 2010, and tall chain-link fences were added to bridges near campus. And since Cornell installed steel-mesh nets under the bridges in May 2013, no suicides have been attempted at the bridges. Ithaca’s mayor, Svante Myrick, said in a press release that the city paid $100,000 not because the lawsuit had merit, but because it was cheaper than paying for the legal costs of a trial and appeals.