A few years ago, a man attempted suicide by jumping in front of a moving subway train. He survived-and then sued for his injuries-and he won.

If that sounds idiotic to you-it is. But it's just one example of the thousands of absurd and crushingly expensive personal injury judgments that you as taxpayers have to shell out-judgments that now mount up to half a billion dollars or more for City government each year.

When people are injured and the City genuinely bears some responsibility, then it's reasonable for the City to pay personal injury claims. But in recent years, such claims, which are also called "torts," have become increasingly numerous, expensive and, like the example above, divorced from reality. Just consider this: Over the last two decades, the amount the City pays out in tort judgments and settlements has increased by 2,300 %.

I have asked the City Council and State Legislature to enact tort reforms that will reduce these enormously expensive and, often, absurd City payouts. These common sense reforms include, for example, making it the law that the City only bear its share of responsibility for someone's injury-not, as it frequently does now, 100 %, because plaintiffs and juries think the City has "deep pockets" full of cash. Another reform would make a stronger case for personal responsibility in tort cases by prohibiting a plaintiff from recovering damages if a jury finds that he or she was at least 50 % the cause of an accident leading to an injury.

Lately, the news has highlighted New York's very real budget problems. Over the next several fiscal years, we face deficits of between five and six billion dollars. Personal injury settlements and judgments against the City equal roughly 10 % of that deficit. That's money we simply cannot afford to throw away. When juries saddle City government with unfair multi-million dollar judgments, they're hurting themselves, and all of us. They're draining away the money we need to pay those who protect us-who educate our kids-who keep our streets clean-and who provide for the most needy. If we could reduce the City's tort payouts by half, it could, for example, permit us to pay the salaries of 5,000 firefighters or teachers.

Cynics say that tort reform is politically impossible. Don't believe them. Pick up any newspaper, and you'll read about corporations downsizing and restructuring to deal with economic realities. City government is in the same boat. "Business as usual" just doesn't wash anymore; excessive tort payouts are a form of business as usual that will just have to go if New Yorkers are going to have the services we need.