Tri-Valley Herald - northern California / March 5, 2007
Attorney: District liable in girl’s death
Court records cite numerous references to neglect of railroad crossing gate
HAYWARD — If Celedonia Jasmin Castro had not been struck dead by an Amtrak commuter train at the Huntwood Avenue Gate railroad crossing in February 2005, a contract entered into in 1958 by the Hayward Unified School District and Southern Pacific Railroad might have faded into history unnoticed.
But Castro did die in the act of saving someone else’s life on the railroad tracks, and her parents have filed a suit against the district for negligence.
Their case could hinge on the 1958 contract that states the Huntwood Avenue Gate would be kept “closed and securely locked at all times except when said crossing is actually being used,” and the district would “maintain a competent adult watchman or guard satisfactory to Railroad for the protection of traffic at all times while said crossing is being used,” according to court records.
Ten years after the contract was signed, the district abandoned its responsibilities to supervise the gate, said Tom Gundlach, attorney for the Castro family.
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