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Lawsuit filed against shipper over Montreal, Maine & Atlantic derailment
It was not just the cars, it was the volatile nature of this oil.
Actually, the legal hurdles needed to surmount in order to win in court on either slander or libel charges are, thankfully, very high in the USA. On the other hand, the degree of ignorance and/or ideological bias often exhibited here is likewise.
@HENRY F SOMMERS from NEW YORK >> There are a WHOLE lot of people in Canada waiting to get back to work and business for the railroad to get going again. While you may want the “Classification folks” to “pay the piper”, PAYING isnt fixing a problem…BUt it is being addressed. I find it really ODD that nobody actually puts a PRICE on What they want PAID, they just want as much as they can…Even if it costs thie neighbors and family jobs and costs them alot more at the pump…
The “labeling” situation in Canada, and the US is already being delt with. Possible new tankers are on the way, or retrofits. The % of gas/volatile naturally occurring chemicals in this oil was not known exactly, and therefore Labeled as other crude. IF the train was “chocked” on the track, we wouldnt be having this discussion, and nothing would change, so its good for safety to have it. This lawsuit is for money, like others. The real goal should be safety. While I believe , where warranted compensation should happen, there are many industries right in Quebec that rely on the rail. The Rail has been repaired and a new siding is in place.
Seems now its all about money…People would just be shocked if someone sued for “change”. I guess we have to let the RR unions do that??
The nature of the comments is reaching a level which might cause this site to close. Some seem to be on the thin edge of libel and/or slander, neither of which are protected by the right of free speech.
If the shipper did not properly placard the cars, not tell the railroad, not tell proper emergency personnel, about the problems and differences in the crude being shipped, they could have a legal liability in this matter. Doesn’t matter if the railroad had or has insurance, doesn’t matter what the railroad did or didn’t do. In this instance, would the railroad have tied the train down at the top of a hill as a matter of course as it did? Or would it have prohibited that, had a crew ready to continue the move, or even refused the commodity because it was unsafe to handle in existing equipment? No, the shippers…the gas and oil companies…have finally been caught not being open about what they are doing and what the danger of any given product really is. Time they pay the piper for their lies and deceptions…and this could be the beginning of such retributions.
MM&A had the required insurance. In addition they had catestrophic coverage as well in the amount of 200 million. This was insufficient coverage for the damage in this wreck. In addition the insurance carrier is trying to deny the claim. The only thing Mr Burkhart could try to do after the wreck was to try to preserve as much of the asset as possible to pay damages for this disaster. MM&A like all too many transportation companies was a pretty bare operation. A lot of railroad people were very surprised that crude oil would literally explode like it has. The material was shipped as PG III which denotes a lower expected level of problems. Bakken crude has turned out to be considerably more of a hazard then anyone has expected. And yes I think Mr Burkhart deserves defending. He is a decent man who is in an unenviable position. And had even less help in defending himself.
We still know nothing. Talk was for a while that propane in some form or fashion was crashed into thereby contributing to the explosion.
Were any loads involved in this disaster containing propane or other highly flammable products?
It might also be a fact that the heat generated by the derailment and pile up would be sufficient to ignite any combustible product.
I would suggest a copy of Mr.McNamara’s post be sent to Ed Burkhardt. He may wish to take legal action against such libel.
His suggestion that the RCMP arrest him in Illinois is laughable, although it proves his complete ignorance. Canadian police have no power in the USA and any such attempt would cause a major international incident.
While the amount of insurance was clearly inadequate for the catastrophic event that occurred, I have never seen any suggestion it was less than that required by the CTA. Perhaps the coverage should have been increased when the oil trains started running, but hindsight is 20-20. Prior to Lac-Megantic nobody had recognized the volatility of the Bakken type of crude.
Not entirely surprising and it’s the job of the trustee to do this kind of thing. I know the usual suspects will whine about lawsuits, but, you know, sometimes lawsuits are part of a legitimate process. And this is part of the process of ensuring MM&A can pay its debts, which includes the families of the victims, not to mention the massive payments needed to clean up the disaster.
Still, that said, have difficultly believing the final conversation between the fateful train’s engineer and the dispatcher went like this:
“OK, I’m reaching the end of my shift. Looks like the Locomotive is about to catch fire. What’s the plan?”
“Well, let’s stop the train nearby. On top of that hill will do. I don’t think we need to look for an empty siding, or put a derailer downstream, it’s not as if there’s anything explosive on this train. Who cares if it rolls down the hill should the locomotive catch fire and the brakes fail?”
“I know what you mean, I mean, sure, if the train rolls twenty miles it may plough through a few signals, derailing in some town or other, spilling oil causing an environmental catastrophe and perhaps killing someone who’s standing too close to the railroad, but, hey, it’s not like the train will EXPLODE right?”
“Right, just stop the train at the top of the hill, set whatever number of brakes seems about right, and, well, your relief can check on the train in the morning. If it’s still there, but who cares if it isn’t, right?”
No doubt in my mind that the “wrong label” issue might not have helped, but if it’s an underlying cause of the accident, then yet again I have my doubts about the safety culture of North American railroads.
@P MCNAMARA - There is nothing whatsoever in any comment I have ever made that defends or “explains away” the MM&A’s lack of insurance.
For the benefit of those just joining, McNamara doesn’t like being asked, politely, to avoid posting rhetoric that might get forum discussions closed down to avoid libel lawsuits. I made the mistake of asking him this, I also reassured him - after he posted the bizarre statement repeatedly that the $15M or so FIG is paying for the MM&A’s assets will be given to Burkhardt - that the trustees are REQUIRED to pay the debts of the railroad first, and that includes compensation for the families of the victims.
I understand the high emotions. I’ve condemned Burkhardt directly on several occasions here myself. I don’t understand the industry’s rallying around the guy. But there’s language and allegations that should be avoided, as if you use them, you get silenced, I get silenced, and everyone else get silenced.
Knock it off, and don’t you dare lie about me again.
Mr. Trudo, as I understand it there were no loads of propane or anything else other than the crude. Which it is suggested due to the volatile nature of the crude was mislabeled.
Mr. Bates: Puxatawney Phil has mandated you go back in your hole for six weeks! See y’all, when it rains in Texas.
@AUSTIN F LARSON - Regardless of legal obstacles to a successful libel lawsuit in the US, it is a thing, people are successfully sued, and suggesting a private figure whose fault is, at worst, extremely poor judgement and management skills, is guilty of unsubstantiated acts of extreme criminality tips the scales. I’d be surprised if Burkhardt would sue, but if he did I wouldn’t be surprised if he won as a result.
But in any case, in some ways it doesn’t matter: Trains.com HAS been deleting entire discussion threads concerning MM&A. A recent example is:
http://trn.trains.com/Railroad%20News/News%20Wire/2013/12/MMA%20has%20stalking%20horse%20bidder.aspx
Finding it hard to believe they deleted the threads for any reason other than some of the more extreme comments made about a specific private individual.
And that, above all, is why I’d like the libels to stop. I don’t give a Penn Central about the reputation of Burkhardt. I still don’t understand how a railroad can make the series of misjudgements necessary for this accident to have occurred without an appalling “safety culture”, the responsibility for going right to the top. And Burkhardt’s subsequent “Woe is me, I lost all my monies” interviews take the biscuit.
But I’d like to have an adult discussion of the issues raised by the incident, and if Trains.com’s lawyers are freaking out because some idiot feels they can only express their negative views about a CEO through unsubstantiated allegations of extreme criminality, then we’re not going to be able to.
As I told McNamara before, if I ran an off-shore legally protected forum I wouldn’t care if he posted this nonsense there and wouldn’t delete it. But this isn’t my forum. It is subject to US law. Trains.com does have its own legal compliance staff. I’m not surprised they’ve closed a few discussions, and we’ve all lost something because of it.
There was a comment that included the following statement…“The % of gas/volatile naturally occurring chemicals in this oil was not known exactly, and therefore Labeled as other crude…”
As a chemist who has worked with both hazardous materials shipping in the past and petroleum in the present, let me say that there is absolutely no excuse for this.
How the company could have loaded a train without first knowing the characteristics of the petroleum is utterly inconceivable.