California Crash May Test $200 Million Cap on Damages

It's a shame that we have to loose so many lives to prove the concerns for the citizens of Florida were correct and worth the fight that took place on the floor of the State Legislature earlier this year but this points out the need to not rush to a quick fix for Orlando, FDOT and CSX and to give Congress time to come up with a fair and effective nationwide solution. 16 September 2008 - Bloomberg News California Crash May Test $200 Million Cap on Damages By Angela Greiling Keane Sept. 15 (Bloomberg) -- The California commuter train crash that killed 26 people may test a 1997 U.S. law capping passengers` damage claims in railroad accidents at $200 million. The Sept. 12 collision between a Metrolink train and a Union Pacific Corp. freight train in Los Angeles was the worst U.S. passenger rail accident since before the liability limit became law as part of a bill reauthorizing Amtrak, the national passenger rail system. ``It`s hard for me to imagine given the number of deaths and injuries we know about so far that the cap would not come into play,`` said Glenn Scammel, a former Republican staff director for the House rail subcommittee who helped write the 1997 law. ``The cap is almost certainly going to be an issue.`` The $200 million limit is for ``the aggregate allowable awards to all rail passengers,`` including punitive damages, from any single passenger rail accident, according to the text. Scammel said the law covers all rail carriers, not just Amtrak. Metrolink`s preliminary investigation found that the commuter train`s engineer failed to follow a signal directing him to stop to allow the freight train to pass, a spokeswoman said on Sept. 13. The trains collided head-on, with more than 130 people hurt in addition to those killed. The number of fatalities rose to 26 when one of the injured died, Lieutenant Fred Corral of the Los Angeles County Coroner`s Office said today. Professor`s Viewpoint Metrolink may be better off establishing a compensation fund than testing the damages cap in the courts, said Georgetown University Law Center professor Heidi Li Feldman, whose specialties include tort law and complex litigation. ``They would nip litigation in the bud by creating a compensation scheme that is generous enough to adequately compensate people for the very real losses that they`ve obviously suffered,`` she said in an interview from Washington. ``No one likes to litigate under conditions of uncertainty.`` Costs for Metrolink may rise should attorneys for victims of the accident challenge the damage cap`s definition, because the issue hasn`t been settled in court, she said. Callers to Metrolink`s press office were referred today by a recorded message to the National Transportation Safety Board, which is leading the crash inquiry. A message left for board spokesman Terry Williams wasn`t immediately returned. The rail agency`s spokeswoman, Denise Tyrrell, resigned after being criticized by executives for her comments about the crash`s cause, the Wall Street Journal reported. Metrolink is owned by a group of southern California counties. `Very Heavy Change` Feldman said the 1997 law also made ``a very heavy change in the standard that is normally applicable to punitive damages,`` making it harder for victims of rail accidents to win such claims. ``No one ever wants to be the test case on this,`` she said. ``This may involve enough injury and death on the one side and a vulnerable-enough defendant on the other side that people may want to invoke this statute.`` Because the damage limitations apply to passenger-rail crashes, the 1997 law wasn`t tested in connection with fatal accidents such as the 2005 Norfolk Southern Corp. derailment that ruptured a tank car carrying chlorine and killed nine people. Freight railroads have asked Congress for liability limits on accidents involving chemicals. Forty-five people died in a commuter train accident in Chicago in 1972, the New York Times said. An Amtrak crash in Mobile, Alabama, in 1993 that killed 47 people was the worst accident for the long-distance U.S. passenger railroad.