Does anyone know where I could find concrete numbers on how often people injured in grade crossing accidents, or their heirs, sue the railway? I recall from law school that the law is pretty much on the railway’s side in these cases, and I would tend to think that most attorneys would not take such a case knowing it’s a loser. I know here in Chicago, grade crossing accidents are totally common, and if most such incidents resulted in a lawsuit, the Circuit Court would be hearing rail cases as half their docket. Which is clearly not the case.
However, on a railfan board that I read, there is a popular perception that every time some motorist or pedestrian gets hit by a train, a lawsuit results. In particular, there is a braying jackass who rants on about the legal system sucks, all lawyers are scum, etc., ad nauseam each time someone posts a report of a grade crossing accident or the topic of crossing accidents comes up generally. He has no news or even a specific rumor that someone sued; he just presumes that they sued but then talks about it as if it were a certainty. In his mind (to use that term loosely), he KNOWS that if someone got hit by a train, they or their heirs WILL be suing.
Not that it will shut up said donkey, but I hope that being able to show with concrete numbers that most grade crossing accidents DON’T lead to a lawsuit would lead to more of the posters on that board ignoring the burro instead of cheering and seconding him, which only encourages him to post again.
Yeah, I know, I’m an attorney and I should know this one.
John, you may already know this, but the Cook County Jury Verdict reporter publishes an annual index which breaks down cases by type. This may be too limited geographically for you. If so, I think ATLA (American Trial Lawyers Assn.) publishes something similar. I’m not sure, because I’m not a member.
This would give you half of your needed data, but maybe allow you to draw some inferences. I have no idea if anyone in the rail industry publishes anything which tabulates collisions generally.
In a case I know of, they also sued the CITY for not having gates at the crossing. So that’s another statistic to try to track down, if you’re wondering about “lawsuits after accidents” as opposed to just lawsuits against railroads.
IIRC, when the railroads started rolling in this country after 1830, most localities fell over themselves to give the railroads incentives to locate in their towns.
Railroad right of way over existing public roads is one of these deals (another is property tax assessments).
Lawyers made quite a bit of money and prominence on these deals (and the resulting court cases.) One of the more successful railroad lawyers was one Abraham Lincoln btw.
These deals got into the law and end up as legal precedent. None the less, even at their heyday (most profitable times) the railroads resisted spending any money on public safety pushing crossing gates onto the local taxpayer.
As Americans pushed out of the cities into the suburbs, many began to encounter crossings without gates (or even lights). It’s easy not to pay attention - done it once myself, hope never to do it again. If you get hit by one of these behemoth’s - you and your passengers are history. More than a few rail crews have had to go on disability (from engine work) due to the trauma of tearing into cars.
That’s the reason trains blow their horn as an extra warning. I recall one Florida locality had them stop distrubing people’s sleep only to have more grade crossing accidents.
So if you want to sue - you go up against 170 years of legal precedent, you have to prove that the railroad was somehow negligent, and that the victim wasn’t acting like a damn fool.
“John, you may already know this, but the Cook County Jury Verdict reporter publishes an annual index which breaks down cases by type. This may be too limited geographically for you. If so, I think ATLA (American Trial Lawyers Assn.) publishes something similar. I’m not sure, because I’m not a member.”
Yeah, but I don’t think the CCJV has a discrete grade crossing accident category, and it takes some doing to separate out the FELA cases (railway workers suing for on-the-job injuries)* and the cases where passengers are suing the railway (Metra and such). I’m not an ATLA member, either, because I don’t do litigation cases.
Besides, the question is more sociological than strictly legal: what percentage of people injured in crossing accidents, or whose relative died in a crossing accident, sue the railway in the first place. I’m pretty sure that the railway wins when it is sued.
Cranky: good point. Rail crossings are jointly the responsibility of the railway and whatever government owns the road that is crossing the railway. It’s the road agency, and not the railway, that decides what level of crossing protection to install.
*Yes, railway workers, being involved in interstate commerce, are authorized by Federal law to sue their employers. In other words, railway workers are not subject to the provision in every state’s workers’ compensation law that employees can’t sue their employer for on-the-job injuries.
I’ve never seen the sort of statistic John requested in the OP, but the most complete stats for grade crossing (and trespasser-related) accidents that I know of can be found on the Operation Lifesaver web site at:
I would be interested as well to see how often railroads, or the survivors of railroad employees/passengers, file suit against drivers involved in crossing accidents. My gut impression is “rarely, if ever”, although such an action certainly could be justified in some cases. While hitting a car is unlikely to derail a train, impact with a large truck can, and often does, result in a pileup. Consider the incident in Illinois a while back, where a truck driver drove around lowered crossing gates into the path of an Amtrak train, resulting in a horrific crash and numerous passenger fatalities.
Hey John, you live in Chicago, so did you hear about the accident in the west suburb of Bloomingdale in January of '99? It was the day of that really bad snowstorm where we got 20-some odd inches of snow, and the gates on the Illinois Central Railroad tracks at Schmale Road were frozen in the open position. Apparently the local police notifed the ICRR who failed to send someone out to act as a signalman for road traffic as required by Illinois law under these conditions. A car with 2 people in it went through the crossing, oblivious to the fact that a freight train was bearing down on them. The train struck the vehicle and one of the occupants was thrown from the car and killed. The family successfully sued the ICRR (for $3 million or so I believe) for negligence because they didn’t post a signalman out there immediately after being notified of the stuck gates.
So under these extremely unusual conditions, the lawsuit worked in favor of the victims.
Rocket, you’re referring to the Amtrak crash in Bourbonnais, Illinois in 1999. IIRC, families of the 11 dead and many of the injured did in fact file lawsuits against the trucker, who was found to have driven around the lowered gates. I don’t know what became of those lawsuits, maybe John the original poster/lawyer could help us with this one.
[QUOTE]
However, on a railfan board that I read, there is a popular perception that every time some motorist or pedestrian gets hit by a train, a lawsuit results[/QUOTE}
It’s usually a great place to visit, but I dread any thread dealing with grade crossings, graffiti, or cops giving trains tickets. Then, as sure as death and taxes, John-Q-Fed-UP! will “contribute” his usual histrionic fit to the thread. IIRC, someone called him “John-Q-Drama-Queen” – it fits!
Shouldn’t the railroad companies be suing drivers for traumatising the guys driving the trains? How can anyone be so dim witted that they can’t see a freight train trundling along at 15mph? Don’t cars have brakes these days?
“How can anyone be so dim witted that they can’t see a freight train trundling along at 15mph?”
It’s interesting that you should say that. I think the presumption or actual perception (large things seem to be moving slower than they really are) that the train is plodding along causes some drivers to think they can beat it to the crossing. Lots of the grade crossing accidents reported by the media here in Chicago involve people going around the gates in ample time to avoid the slow train they see on the near track – but not the faster train passing on another track. That’s especially true for the pedestrians hit by Metra commuter trains – they run across the tracks to catch their approaching train and are struck by an express train on another track. (Gawd, that seems to happen at least once a week somewhere on the Metra system.) But even some freight trains can get up to 40mph or more.
It is commonly believed that the aforementioned deadly “City of New Orleans” crash at Bourbonnais, IL was caused by the truck driver seeing the gates come down and a train coming and presuming that it was a freight train that he could (slow) and “should” (long train that would delay him) beat to the crossing. It was too late when he realized it was a passenger train that can easily be moving at up to 79 mph.
