Read all the comments after the story. Sounds as if Buffet’s new road has been doing some covering up.
‘Old news’ - already been several threads here on it.
Whatever the public thinks doesn’t matter a bit here. The utlimate decision will be made by a handful of Minnesota appeals court judges.
My ‘2 cents’ is that the awards will stand unchanged, or will be reduced only slightly. While excessively high, they are not outrageously so - the legal test is usually phrased in terms of, ‘‘Does the amount of the award shock the conscience ?’’. Here, it’s not the award that does that - instead, it is BNSF’s apparent or perceived conduct and mishandling of the evidence, and inability to recover or retrive thjat evidence, or furnish a credbile explanation of why not and what happened to it. The courts are usually pretty hostile towards that kind of monkey-business interfering with their functions - it’s one thing if someone else’s ‘ox is being gored’, but not theirs. I read most of the judge’s opinion on the motion for sanctions - if only half of what she wrote is true, BNSF is lucky it got off that lightly. And this is in Minnesota - not exactly a state that’s known for being ‘pro-business defendant’ in such ‘tort’ cases for legal damages.
It might now be worthwhile for BNSF to devote a substantial amount of time and money towards ensuring that everyone involved with such matters and evidence is thoroughly trained and absolutely clear on how it is to be handled and the procedures to be followed, so that this kind of thing doesn’t happen again. And maybe to complete the mounting of video cameras on leading locomotives to provide pretty much incontrovertible evidence of what really happened, at least for those collisions at the front of the train - until one of those malfunc
The story started a long time ago and has been discussed here as it developed, but the first post here is a new development. I cannot draw any conclusions about the evidence supporting signal failure, however, from what I know of the State Patrol test for the vehicle position, I believe their conclusion is faulty and does not prove that the vehicle did not run around the first gate.
The original poster is correct to suggest that BNSF has been dragged through the mud, both by the trial and by the coverage in the Startrib. In addition to the cost of the award, I would not underestimate the damage done to the BNSF brand by the ordeal. This latest development with the BNSF arguing that the lives of the young victims have been overpriced is bound to backfire in the realm of public opinion, and do more damage to the BNSF brand. Regarding that kind of damage, I believe it does matter significantly what the public thinks about the case.
Tough case. In Illinois, remember the Metra - Rachel Barton case award for 29 mil. in 1999 or the IC - Velarde case award for 55 mil. in 2002.
I wish I could comment, but my views would not be “PC” and would be disparaging to Jurists and Tort Lawyers and I’d get banned from the Forum again.
The awards are typically, though not exclusively determined by a jury of peers in an American court of law. Percentages of contributory neglect are usually determined. I don’t know if the BNSF, etc. were 100% responsible or a smaller percentage. It is a process available to us all. So, would you eliminate tort law or merely set some different guidelines for determining damages, as has been done in the UK and Europe? (oops, I guess there is nothing to learn from them?)
No where in Paul Levy’s article was the direction of the car indicated. We do know that the BNSF train was westbound. If the car was southbound, they should have seen the train long before both got to the crossing. If,however, the car was northbound they would literally have no chance of of seeing the train because a building blocks the view of any train that approaches going westbound. If the crossing was malfunctioning; they didn’t stand a chance.The State Patrol,BNSF, Judge Maas and the jury would know; however, I have never heard anyone writing any thread or the Star Tribune comment on this.
One comment written about the story in the Star Tribune has this comment. I learned that in driver’s trainning you always assume that a train is coming regardless when you approach a crossing. That is why school buses and trucks must stop at crossings. Also why wasn’t USDOT or the FRA envolved in this investigation?
BNSF watcher just why cant you post? as long as you stay in the guide lines they cant touch you. just dont make it real personal or go after anyone directly and you will be fine.
Now on with this post just what would the FRA do in this? If they investigate and they probley did NOTHING and I do mean nothing in the report or the investigation they do will be allowed as evidence in court nothing can be brought up about what they did . if they fined the railroad or gave them a clean bill, is not allowed in court.
We had a long discussion thread on this starting last spring. Somewhere in the thread, it was established that the car was traveling southbound on Ferry Street.
http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/t/153586.aspx?PageIndex=1
A couple months ago, the judge had written a large report detailing the misconduct of BNSF in the case. Here is a Startrib article on that development:
I cannot seem to locate the report, but maybe someone else can put up the link to it. It was maybe 20-40 pages detailing all the misconduct by BNSF. From what I recall, it does not directly prove that the signals and gates failed to function, but the pattern of behavior by BNSF suggests that they were trying to cover up a signal/gate malfunction.
I agree that you can not assume that the debris field is the point of contact, I have hit cars at 25mph and at 50 mph and the debris field at 50 mph would have ment that the car was crossing the railroad 30 feet from the crossing over just rail
I believe that they said that the point of impact was determined by assuming that it coincided with either the beginning of the debris field or the first marks on the pavement left by the car during impact.
The engine hit the car dead center at 59 mph. Certainly every part of the car would have been accelerated into motion by the train impact. It would have taken some time for the momentum of that motion to dissipate. During that time, every part of the car would have traveled in the direction of the train movement. It therefore seems perfectly reasonable to conclude that the first part of the car to become stationary on the ground after impact would be resting downstream from the point of impact possibly as much as several yards.
Regarding the first marks on the pavement left by the car during impact, BNSF argued that the impact initially lifted the car off of the pavement, and therefore, the first marks on the pavement were actually downstream from the point of impact.
Schlimm,correctly alludes to the percentage of responsibility. I cannot speak to railroad cases, but in automotive (commercial truck related). When there are a death or multiple deaths, I seem to recall that when awards were made, there was a percentage of fault/ neglect (?) assigned to the involved parties. The monetary awards were based on those percentages of the gross amount awarded and those percentages of responsibility assigned by the court to the parties viewed as being parties to the cause. (i.e.) a case where there werer multiple deaths caused by a driver running into multiple stopped cars on an Interstrae highway, resulting in multiple deaths and much property damage.
Making a long story short, the State crew failed to follow Federal guidelines for Interstate warning sign criteria ( distances for specific type warning signs prescribed, backward from work site to noitify on-coming traffic of an upcoming workzone). Driver/Company were ascribed a lower percentage of blame than was the State( which bore the responsibility for the major percentage of damages due to failure to sign the work site appropriately); in a multiple million dollar settlement courtcase --unusual in itself, for a case such as this to get to trial, as most transportation corporations and their insurance companies prefer to settle out of court. Due to the potential for
And the percentages of fault also apply to the many cases that are submitted to binding arbitration.
All I can say is I’m glad it’s not my railroad - I follow the ATSF.
But it is!! ATSF and BN merged in the mid-1990s.