A woman who claims she was injured when she was startled by an advertisement for cable television’s “Dexter” show at Grand Central Terminal has filed a lawsuit saying the ad’s placement was dangerous, her attorney said on Wednesday.
The oversized ad for Showtime’s popular show about a serial killer was spread across the risers of steps leading up to the bustling terminal, said the woman’s attorney, Rehan Nazrali.
The lawsuit, filed last week in Bronx Supreme Court, says the placement of the ad was hazardous and caused her to fall last June, he said.
The ad featured a closeup of the face of the show’s star, Michael C. Hall, wrapped in cellophane. He plays a forensics expert who moonlights as a serial killer and encases his victims in plastic wrap.
The woman, Ajanaffy Njewadda, was walking down the staircase, a vantage point from which the ad was not visible, but stopped and turned around midway to look for her husband, a former ambassador from Gambia, the lawyer said.
“It’s a big face wrapped in cellophane,” said the attorney. “It scares her…. That little shock was enough of a trigger to throw her off balance.”
Njewadda fell down the stairs, fracturing her right foot, spraining her right ankle and hitting her head, he said.
Named in the lawsuit were Showtime, the New York City Transit Authority, CBS Outdoor Americas which contracted to place the ad, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and New York City, he said.
“This is the media saturation and over-commercialization of public space,” the lawyer said. “This ad was a shockvertisement.”
He declined to say how much money his client was seeking, only to say they were seeking “a fair deal.”
A spokeswoman at the MTA said it does not comment on pending litigation.
Showtime could not immediately be reached for comment.
