A Manhattan jury awarded more than $400,000 to a woman who claimed she suffered a brain injury when an NYPD cop threw her to the ground during the 2012 Occupy Wall Street protests.
Mary Tardif, 33, was granted the $431,250 compensation Friday, almost a decade after she filed a 2013 lawsuit alleging a sergeant caused her the traumatic injury while she acted as a medic for the left-wing demonstrators.
Tardif, of Manhattan, had sought unspecified damages and called the verdict “very vindicating.”
“I feel like I have actually known justice for the first time,” Tardif said in an interview.
Tardiff — who works at Broadway Advocacy Coalition where she performs sign language interpreting for Broadway shows — has had epilepsy since she was 19.
The violent encounter at Union Square caused her head to slam into the ground, leaving her with a permanent brain injury that limits her professional capabilities, according to Tardiff and trial evidence.
She said she considered the decision — which concluded a “battery” had occurred but not an assault — a victory for “occupiers who never got to see this day or never got to have their day in court.”
“It feels like a win for all of us,” she said. “I wish I could share it with them. There were so many.”
A Law Department rep insisted Tardif “was never thrown to the ground, as she claimed,” and said the city was “disappointed” with the outcome.
A jury in 2018 rejected the claims before the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan reinstated the case, due to flaws in the first trial, the spokesperson, Nick Paolucci said.
“Additionally, and unfortunately, the jury was not aware that [Tardif] had introduced new injuries at this second trial that were never alleged in the initial case,” said Paolucci.