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Family of man dragged to death by Red Line train settles with MBTA for $5 million
Robinson Lalin died in 2022 after his arm got caught in the doors of a Red Line train.
The MBTA recently settled a lawsuit with the family of a man who was dragged to death when his arm got caught in the doors of a Red Line train. Robinson Lalin’s family will receive $5 million, according to court documents.
Lalin died on April 10, 2022. At around 12:30 a.m. inside Broadway Station, as he attempted to exit a Red Line train, the doors slammed shut on his upper body and arm. Witnesses have described watching Lalin run alongside the train as it began to move out of the station. He frantically banged on the side of the train and screamed at the operator in an attempt to get their attention, to no avail.
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The train did not stop, and Lalin collided with a wall at the end of the platform. Police found his body 75 feet inside the tunnel. His hand was severed. Lalin was 39.
Lalin’s family sued the MBTA about a year later.
“Prior to his death, and while he was being trapped and dragged to his death by the MBTA train, Mr. Lalin’s body was damaged and dismembered, and he experienced great pain of body and anguish of mind resulting in his conscious pain and suffering prior to his death,” his family wrote in their initial complaint upon filing the lawsuit.
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An MBTA spokesperson declined to comment. A lawyer representing Lalin’s family members, Robert Norton, did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
A National Transportation Safety Board investigation found that the doors malfunctioned due to a short circuit. A safety mechanism designed to prevent the train from moving while doors remained opened did not work as intended due to the short circuit.
Investigators also said that a camera monitor used by the train operator had a 19-foot blind spot that prevented her from seeing where Lalin got stuck in the doors. They also found that the operator disobeyed MBTA safety protocols by pulling her head back into the train and ending her visual inspection of the platform before the pilot lights above the doors turned off.
Those findings were part of a wide-ranging, and nearly unprecedented, inspection of the MBTA that the NTSB conducted in response to multiple safety failures. The federal agency found that the MBTA overly prioritized long-term capital projects to the detriment of its regular operations. The MBTA had trouble analyzing safety information properly, lacked key communication channels, and suffered from poor staffing, the NTSB determined in 2022.
The car involved in the accident was among 68 Red Line cars that debuted in 1969 and were meant to be replaced by 1994. But delays involving a Chinese company contracted to build new Red Line cars in Springfield caused the replacement date to be postponed repeatedly. Some new Red Line cars are now in operation, but many older models remain.
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After Robinson Lalin died, his nephew Kelvin took to wearing a photo of Robinson around his neck and sitting in Broadway Station with a sign that read “the MBTA slaughtered my uncle 4/10/22 Safety over profits!!!”
Kelvin and one of Lalin’s two children, Christopher, were named in the lawsuit as representatives of Robinson Lalin’s estate. The settlement will be split between Christopher, Kelvin, and Robinson’s teenage daughter, according to court records.
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