HIGH
COURT PROTECTS RAILROADS
The Repository
April 18, 2000
By: Staff and wire reports
Vicky
Moore was devastated, shocked and "still shaking" after
hearing that the Supreme Court gave railroads greater protection
Monday against being sued over allegedly inadequate warning
devices at rail crossings.
The justices, voting
7-2 in a Tennessee case, said railroads are not financially
liable if the equipment installed at a grade-level crossing
was federally funded.
The two dissenting
judges, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Pual Stevens, said the
decision defies common sense and sound policy.
Mrs. Moore and her
husband, Dennis, lost their son, Ryan, to a car-train accident
March 25, 1995. Ryan and two other teen-agers died when a
train struck their car at a railroad crossing on Deerfield
Avenue, N.W., near the county line. The Moores won a judgement
against the railroad company and are using the money to improve
railroad crossings around the state through their Angels
On Track Foundation.
"I don't think
they used divine judgment on this," Mrs. Moore said. "I
don't think they realize the effect this will have on future
cases."
Congress has provided
states with more than $3 billion since 1975 to increase safety
at most of the nation's 170,000 public grade-level crossings.
During that time, the number of fatal accidents at crossings
has dropped from more than 1,500 per year to 431 in 1998.
"Nothing prevents
a state from revisiting the adequacy of devices installed
using federal funds,"
Justice Sandra Day O'Conner wrote for the court. "States
are free to install more protective devices at such crossings
with their own funds or with additional (federal) funding.
"What states
cannot do-once they have installed federally funded devices
at a particular crossing-is hold the railroad responsible
for the adequacy of those devices," she said.
"O'Connor is
putting responsibility back on the states, and that's the
problem now," Mrs. Moore said. "The states are
paying 90 percent of the improvements, and the railroad companies
have a 10 percent voluntary payment. They've given railroads
the right to keep killing people."
The decision wiped
out a $430,765 legal victory Dedra Shanklin had won against
Norfolk Southern Railway Co. after the Oct. 3, 1993, death
of her husband, Eddie, whose car was truck by a train at
a crossing in Gibson County, Tenn.
The Clinton administration
and various rail safety groups had urged the court to rule
otherwise.
"Rail safety
has taken a serious blow," said Robert Pottroff, a Manhattan,
Kan., lawyer who represents such groups as Angels on Track,
Railwatch and the Coalition for Safer Crossings.
"Lives
are being lost. I can't believe Congress and the Federal
Highway Administration will allow this regulatory scheme
to stand."
Norfolk
Southern Railway spokesman, Frank Brown called the decision "a
good one" that "heads off second-guessing about
the adequacy of warning devices after they've been installed
with federal money."
"Try
to find an upgraded railroad crossing that wasn't paid
for from federal funds, Mrs. Moore said.
The Tennessee crossing
had a reflectorized sign but no gates or flashing lights
to signal a train's approach. Shanklin was driving 20 mph,
and he apparently did not hear the train whistle because
his windows were rolled up and his radio was playing.
Mrs. Shanklin's
lawsuit invoked a Tennessee law and accused the railroad
of negligently having failed to install adequate warning
devices. But the railroad's lawyers argued that the warning
sign had been erected under a state project approved and
financed by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).
A federal trial
judge and the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected
the railroad's contention that federal approval and funding
immunized it from negligence claims, but Monday's decision
reversed those rulings.
"Once
the FHWA approved the project and the signs were installed
using federal funds, the federal standard for adequacy
displaced Tennessee statutory and common law addressing
the same subject, thereby pre-empting (Mrs. Shanklin's)
claim, O'Connor said.
Mrs. Shanklin still
may pursue other claims against Norfolk Southern, such as
alleging a failure to sound the train's horn soon enough
or failure to remove vegetation from the crossing.
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