CHICAGO — A Chicago law firm has filed seven separate lawsuits against Amtrak and BNSF Railway on behalf of passengers injured in the Sept. 25 derailment of the Empire Builder, and says it will challenge an arbitration requirement added to tickets in 2019.
A press release from the Clifford Law Offices says the firm obtained a $16.75 million verdict against Amtrak as a result of the 2017 Amtrak Cascades derailment prior to the addition of the arbitration requirement.
Suits were filed on behalf of Ryan and Hanna Shea, ages 34 and 31, of Leverett, Mass; Brandi and Shawnee Gimse, 42 and 29, of York, Pa.; Morgan and Christopher Grosso, 31 and 39, of Lafayette, Ind., and Theodore Hastreiter of Whitefish, Mont.
The firm says it has been contacted by other passengers and intends to file other suits. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the derailment in Joplin, Mont.
The new filings follow a suit filed last week by the widow of one of the three people killed in the derailment [see “Widow of Empire Builder derailment victim sues Amtrak, BNSF,” Trains News Wire, Sept. 29, 2021].
Amtrak’s arbitration policy remains in place despite congressional scrutiny. A group of 13 U.S. Senators asked then-CEO Richard Anderson to eliminate the policy, which Anderson declined, citing the desire to “reduce unnecessary litigation costs” [see “Senators request Amtrak eliminate arbitration requirement …” News Wire, Dec. 3, 2019]. A bill to eliminate forced arbitration introduced that year failed to pass.
Many times litigation is necessary to get insurance to make a pay out. Insurance does not make its profit by paying claims. Don’t know if that is the case here or not.
In this day and age of litigation I wonder if it would be better to have a cap on Lawyer’s fees/percentages!!!. Litigation is not really a friend of victims either no matter what a lawyer will say in my opinion. In other words, I don’t think arbitration is a bad thing as done right by independent counsel should get a reasonable settlement that the victims are entitled too at the same time get these outrageous settlements that do nothing more than enrich the lawyers.
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Can’t help but think how Cali fire victims themselves that got involved in a massive class action lawsuit w PGE, law firms and subsequent agreement are getting screwed. The stories reported in last month or so highlights how much money lawyers are raking in on both sides of the settlement while victims are getting a trickle of the settlement owed to them and at same time found out that part of the pay out is PGE stocks w a fair share of restrictions. The victims found out after the fact that almost half of the settlement agreed upon was stocks options on stocks that tanked in value.
Congress is looking at the forced arbitration issue from the wrong angle. They should be wondering why Amtrak went the forced arbitration route vs allowing litigation…of course that would mean looking at the lawyers gift horse in the mouth aka frivolous lawsuits and obscene monetary rewards.
Was a cause ever found for the Builder derailment?
LOREN – Nothing on this website so far. As for the conventional mass media, I don’t recall any mention of who owns the track. Which isn’t Amtrak, it’s BNSF.
Yes Charles the media did say BNSF owns the tracks, many times over on many different platforms.
Sorry Mark, not in any of the articles I read. I stand corrected. Thank you.