Trespasser sues railroad
She “was taking pictures on the railroad tracks in Tupelo in 2006″ and things didn’t end happily. Now her lawsuit says the train was going too fast and that the BNSF Railway Company “should have posted...
View Article“4-year-old survives being hit by train”
Perhaps the most urgent question raised by this Atlanta Journal-Constitution story is not: how did Elijah Anderson manage to emerge from such a collision sufficiently unscathed to resume life as a...
View ArticleJanuary 14 roundup
Anti-vaccine activist files defamation suit over much-discussed Wired article against Dr. Paul Offit, author Amy Wallace and Conde Nast [Orac and many followup posts] “Kid Suspended for Bringing...
View ArticleClaim: underfunding of Chicago transit authority constitutes racial bias
Subsidies are better for the Metra commuter rail line than for the city subways, which carry a more heavily minority ridership, says the class-action lawsuit against the State of Illinois, the RTA and...
View Article“Oh man, you are so lucky….You are going to make a fortune”
A nasty fall on a train platform puts Larry Mendte face to face with some widely held attitudes that seem to treat litigiousness as a given [Philadelphia Magazine via Common Good]. Tweet Tags:...
View Article“Family of man hit by train suing railroad, canoe company”
Springfield, Ohio: “The family of a man who was hit by a train while jumping off a trestle into a river two years ago is suing the railroad and a local canoe center.” The canoe company, according to...
View ArticleAmtrak damage limits and the Chatsworth crash
Ted Frank rebuts a lame Atlantic column (& follow-up). Tweet Tags: damages, railroads Amtrak damage limits and the Chatsworth crash is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our...
View ArticleL.I.R.R. disability scandal
The abuse of disability claims by employees of the Long Island Rail Road, exposed by the New York Times’s Walt Bogdanich three years ago and noted in several items here at the time, has at last...
View Article“Amtrak Bans 12-Year-Old Unaccompanied Child Riders”
Because Something Might Go Wrong, though there seems a shortage of evidence that much actually has been going wrong for youthful travelers on the railroad. If the new policy prevents youngsters from...
View ArticleIllinois court: don’t blame railroad for asbestos delivery
“This January, the justices stopped [attorney James] Wylder’s argument dead in its tracks once again, concluding that the McLean County Circuit Court should have dismissed his three negligence suits...
View ArticleNY menaces model train maker
Attorneys for the state, which has a record of zealously guarding its “I [Heart] NY” promotional logo, have sent a threat to a model train company over a discontinued replica model of a real-life train...
View Article“Rails to trails” maneuver was a taking
So will the federal government pay just compensation? The Supreme Court may decide that question in the pending case of Brandt v. U.S., in which the Cato Institute has filed an amicus brief. [Ilya...
View ArticleHappy trails, with paid-for takings
The Supreme Court, 8-1 with Sotomayor dissenting, agrees with a Cato Institute brief (earlier) and disagrees with the government: the feds can’t conjure away landowners’ rights as part of the...
View ArticlePlaintiff wants to bring Austrian train crash claim to U.S. courts
At the Supreme Court’s first oral argument of its new term, “the court’s most liberal justices joined in criticizing the idea the Austrian national railway could be liable simply for allowing its...
View Article“Engineer who fell asleep sues Metro-North over derailment”
“An engineer who fell asleep at the controls of a Metro-North train and caused a derailment that killed four people in New York City sued the railroad… saying its negligence and carelessness led to the...
View ArticleClimbs commuter railroad tower, contacts high voltage lines
“A trial is set to begin for a $20 million lawsuit against Metro-North Railroad by a man severely injured when he climbed a Metro-North tower in Connecticut and fell on electric wires that power the...
View ArticleLiability roundup
Multi-district litigation still a Wild West realm: “Lawyers for Civil Justice Urges Reform of MDL Procedures” [request for rulemaking via TortsProf] “Multidistrict Litigation Reform: The Case for...
View ArticleJanuary 3 roundup
California attorney known for suing bars over “ladies’ nights” sues comedian Iliza Shlesinger over “Girls Night In” show [Gene Maddaus, Variety] “Jury Rejects Damages for Victims of SWAT Raid Based on...
View ArticleEnvironment roundup
Organized efforts mount to blockade, shut down, and ban oil and gas infrastructure [David Roberts/Vox; Kevon Paynter] My two cents on Baltimore’s ban on new or expanded crude oil terminals, which...
View ArticleGreen emergencies and grownups
“An end to industrial civilization, but like in a totally pro-union way.” My two cents at Ricochet on the politics of this week’s “Green New Deal” boomlet, the land of pure imagination that exists...
View Article
