A state appeals court has upheld the dismissal of a wrongful-death lawsuit filed against the state by the family of Alfred Langner, the Brooklyn man who froze to death after his car crashed off the Adirondack Northway in the town of North Hudson in January 2007.
But a separate wrongful-death claim seeking $25 million from the state is still pending.
Both actions allege the state was negligent in maintaining the highway and failed to provide cell-phone service or any other means of emergency communications in the area where the accident occurred.
Langner and his wife Barbara were returning home from a wedding in Montreal around 2 a.m. on Jan. 25, 2007 when their car skidded off the road, struck an embankment, went airborne and came to rest in a grove of trees. Hidden from the view of passing motorists, the car wasn't discovered for another 33 hours. The Langners suffered serious injuries in the crash and were trapped inside in subzero temperatures.
Unable to get cell phone service to call for help, Alfred Langner, 63, died of hypothermia. Barbara Langner survived but suffered severe frostbite.
In November 2007, Jeremy Marc Langner, the executor of Alfred Langner's estate, filed a wrongful-death claim against the state. According to court documents, he claimed the state was "negligent in failing to remove snow and ice from the roadway, in failing to properly design and construct the roadway and in failing to provide suitable cell phone service or other means of emergency contact."
But the case was dismissed by the state Court of Claims in May 2008.
The Appellate Division of State Supreme Court upheld that decision in a ruling issued last month, finding the initial "notices" of claim failed to name the state as the defendant or show how it was negligent. The claim itself was found to be untimely.
But Andrew Weitz of New York City, the attorney handling the case for the Langner estate, filed a separate wrongful death claim against the state in March of 2008, within a two-year statute of limitations from the date of Alfred Langner's death. That case is still pending.
The case makes the same negligence claims, including allegations that the state was negligent in the design, construction and maintenance of the highway where the accident took place. The claim also states that the Langners made "numerous attempts to call for help" but "were unsuccessful due to the (state's) failure to timely implement a well settled plan for cell tower coverage in the area."
The latest claim seeks $25 million from the state for "severe and serious personal injuries, conscious pain and suffering, mental anguish and related damages including but not limited to wrongful death."
Several messages left for Andrew Weitz were not returned.
A spokesman for state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo declined to comment on the case.
The Langner case sparked an outcry among politicians and the public over the lack of cell-phone service on a remote, 50-mile stretch of Northway.
Verizon Wireless later proposed a network of 13 cell towers to help close the coverage gap, the first of which was activated in North Hudson in October 2008. Four sites have now been activated, and a fifth is scheduled to go into service before the end of the year, according to a news release from Verizon.
Two other cell towers are in the works in North Hudson. Verizon and T-Mobile are each planning to put up a new tower near the High Peaks Rest Area on I-87. The proposals are scheduled to come before the state Adirondack Park Agency, which requires any new towers to be "substantially invisible," at its meeting next week.
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Contact Chris Knight at 891-2600 ext. 24 or cknight@adirondackdailyenterprise.com.