Dive Brief:
- A wrongful death lawsuit can move forward with its claim that Cornell University and the city of Ithaca were negligent in the suicide of a Cornell student, a judge has ruled.
- The lawsuit claims that the university and the city failed to exercise reasonable care in the design, construction, and maintenance of a bridge used by the student, Bradley Ginsberg, to jump to his death in 2010.
- Two other Cornell students also committed suicide from bridges in the months following Ginsberg’s death.
Dive Insight:
Cornell should have foreseen that suicide attempts from the bridge were likely, the U.S. District Court judge ruled. Between 1990 and 2010, 27 people committed suicide on or near the Cornell campus, including 13 jumping deaths. Some of the claims in the wrongful death lawsuit, filed by Ginsberg’s father, have been dismissed, including claims against individuals and a claim for punitive damages. Originally, the 2011 lawsuit was seeking $168 million. Ginsberg jumped from the city-owned Thurston Avenue bridge over the Fall Creek gorge. Cornell owns four other bridges, while the city owns three. No suicide attempts at the bridges have been reported since Cornell finished installing permanent steel-mesh nets below all of the bridges in May 2013.