The Osaka Municipal Government reached an out-of-court settlement Monday with a 29-year-old visually impaired man who sustained serious injuries when he was hit by a subway train while walking along a station platform in 1995.
Under the terms of the agreement brokered by the Osaka High Court, the city, which operates the subway system, will pay 3 million yen to Ayato Saki, 29, and set up a protective fence at the accident site. Saki had filed a lawsuit seeking some 48 million yen in damages.
According to the lawsuit, Saki was a university student on his way home from school in Kobe in October 1995 when he was knocked off balance by an incoming train while walking along the platform at Tennoji Station on the Midosuji Line.
He fell onto the space by the tracks and broke his leg and hand.
The Osaka District Court dismissed the suit in October 2001, but Saki filed an appeal.