SUPREME
COURT SHOCKS LOCAL FOUNDATION
Angels on Track reacts to railroad ruling
The Sun Journal
April 27-May 3, 2000
By: Shane Riggs-News
Editor
Vicky Moore is livid.
A Supreme Court
ruling last week essentially eliminating railroad responsibility
from fatal crashes if the rail used federal dollars, left
Moore - one of the founders of the Angels on Track Foundation
- spinning.
"It was quite
a shock,"
she said. "When I heard this, it knocked me to my knees.
I thought about our case and what might have happened if this
had occurred earlier. I thought there was no way on earth they
could rule against families and what we have been through."
On March 25, 1995,
Moore's son, Ryan, 16, was killed along with two other friends,
also 16 - Joshua White and Alyson Ley - at a railroad crossing
in Lawrence Township.
The three lives
were taken when Ryan, his brother, and four of their friends
were hit by a Conrail train as they crossed tracks on Deerfield
Ave. which were not equipped with warning lights and signals.
Ryan was in the
back seat with Joshua and Alyson. His older brother, Jason,
was driving and had even slowed down to cross the unmarked
tracks. The front of the car had cleared the tracks. The
train struck the rear. The three passengers in the front
- Jason, Joshua's younger sister Rebecca and Jennifer Helms
- sustained injuries - many of them serious - but survived.
The three who were killed instantly were in the backseat.
That crossing has
been the site of eight deaths since 1975. The last fatal
accident before the crash that took the life of the three
motoring friends had only been two months prior.
The railroad line
on which the fatal accident of five years ago occurred had
previously benefited from federal funding and, under the
new ruling, would have been exempt from any liability.
The Supreme Court
justices voted seven to two last week, citing a Tennessee
case, and ruled that railroads are not financially responsible
if the equipment used to upgrade a crossing was federally
funded.
"The railroad
has been exempted from any responsibility," said Moore.
The ruling also
sets a dangerous precedent, in which Moore believes railroads
will now wait even longer to upgrade crossings.
"They will
wait," she said. "Why would the railroads improve
it when they can get the federal funding which excludes them?"
Moore credits two
justices - Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Paul Stevens - for objecting
to the ruling.
"They said
it defies common sense," said Moore.
This is not the
first time the Supreme Court has ruled in favor the railroads.
In 1993, a mandatory financial requirement was lifted from
the railroad and the contribution was ruled voluntary instead.
That ruling, called the Easterwood decision, made it possible
for the railroad companies to voluntarily contribute 10 percent
to the cost of crossing improvements.
Moore believes the
railroads would now wait until the federal funding was available
before making the improvements, making the 1993 ruling virtually
nonexistent.
Moore and her husband
Denny, their foundation, and the national coalition, in which
they had been involved, will keep fighting.
"Success is
getting up one more time than you've been knocked down," she
said. "We will get back up. This just makes us all the
more determined. For one day, I was depressed. Then I started
thinking again."
The Moores - who
do not see themselves as crusaders - did not stop with The
Angels on Track Foundation.
The Moores were
instrumental in helping found a railroad safety task force
in Wayne County as well as one in Stark County, in which
Stark County Commissioner Donald Watkins now chairs.
The Moores goal
is to establish a railroad safety task force in the 80 counties
in Ohio that have functional rails. They have testified before
Congress and have met with other families who have been victimized
by car-train collisions to lend their support.
In November, the
Moores hosted a symposium of similar foundations and safety
organizations in the national and a national chapter - The
National RailRoad Safety Coalition - was developed.
It is that coalition
the Moores has turned to now.
The couple is determined
to make railroad safety its priority. The foundation is established
to provide local reimbursement grants for railway improvements.
It is not just the
support of others who have been through the same situation
that Moore, the foundation and others like it will seek.
They also have the support of the Clinton Administration.
"Our only hope
comes from the fact that the Clinton Administration backed
us. Congress can step in and correct this error in judgment
and draw up some legislation," she said.
"If that stays the way it is, it gives the railroad the
right to keep killing and take no responsibility for it."
The e-mail messages
and the phone started ringing at the Moores' house the moment
the ruling was announced.
"Now we have
more people involved. Everyone I have talked to doesn't know
how the Supreme Court could have done this," Moore said. "We
want to keep the railroads accountable."
|
