CHICAGO — The widow of a man killed in Saturday’s Empire Builder derailment in Montana has filed suit against Amtrak and BNSF railway for their alleged role in her husband’s death.
Courthouse News Service reports Rebecca Schneider, wife of 28-year-old victim Zach Schneider, filed suit Tuesday in federal court in Chicago for unspecified damages. Zach Schneider was among three people killed; Rebecca Schneider is reported to have sustained severe injuries. Her suit claims neglicence, infliction of emotional distress, wrongful deatjh, and survival action.
The 35-page filing proposes that the derailment was caused by poor maintenance and inspection of tracks, reckless operation of the train, and or malfunctioning train control systems, and says the accident “occurred due to the systematic failures of Amtrak to have an adequate culture in place to ensure safety on its railways.”
Amtrak said in a statement to the news service that it was sorry for the Schniders’ loss and was offering assistance “to injured passengers and employees and the families of those who have lost loved ones” but was otherwise unable to comment on the litigation. BNSF declined comment.
With this lawsuit, doesn’t BNSF have ample cause to immediately and permanently evict Amtrak from its rights-of-way? Let Amtrak build its own railroad. The government certainly has enough money to do it. As a lifelong railfan, I like passenger trains. But, enough is enough. If the government wants passenger trains on freight railroads, legally protect the railroads. Even worse have been the calls from those outside the industry to require airliner-like “safety” like seatbelts,”Car Attendants”, and more. In its purest form as a business, all that a railroad is can best be described as an industrial conveyor belt. It transports materials and products from point A to point B. You don’t have people sitting around operating machinery in a chemical or manufacturing plant. Thus, passenger service and freight service are incompatible.
Sir, with the long history of railroads operating both freight and passenger service on common lines, stating that they are incompatible is absurd.
This is the exact reason tort law needs significant reform, including but not limited to: maximum dollar awards(I’d go with anything between 500k and 1m, with preference for 500k), a minimum time between accident and filing(in a case like this, no suit can be filed before the complete NTSB report stating a cause is released, even if that report takes 24 months), eliminate the lawyers fees as a percentage of the outcome(make the people suing pay out of pocket a fixed amount or per hour cost, and only those costs can be recovered if the suit succeeds, if it fails, the plaintiff is responsible, that would cut down on frivolous lawsuits). I think it’s also time we eliminate all legal representation advertising the same as tobacco and alcohol.
Unless something has changed, I seem to recall that the freight railroads are indemnified against any sort of legal action resulting from an Amtrak incident, even if they park a tamper out in front of a speeding Amtrak train.
Good grief! Who knows whether all of the accident victims are even discharged from the hospital! Let alone the cause of the accident. It’s stuff like this that gives lawyers a bad name! And why is it always money? Money won’t bring her husband back!
Rebecca, while you have my condolences on tragically losing your husband, life is full of risks. If you are not willing to accept them, stay in bed, and never ride a train!
…never ride a train, plane, bus or automobile!
Federal courts only require notice pleading not fact pleading. It is about money. Whoever filed wants to make certain the client does not go to another lawyer.
ISDN as in I SMELL DOLLARS NOW. First to the courthouse gets to be the lead in a class action suit and make the bigest share of the spoils.
James Shigley, and Mark Reiter…I agree. While the event and loss of life was tragic, the haste of filing of a lawsuit in this matter truly brings out the worst in the term “ambulance chasers”. The report says that the widow suffered severe injuries herself. So, who contacted who first? The expedited speed of this lawsuit is pitiful. At the very least, let the preliminary facts come out.
A 35 page filing that quick after the accident? Sounds like a lawyer had this suit ready to go for years no matter who was injured or killed.
Remember Athearn “shake and pour” blue ox kits? Lawyers have lawsut templates ready to go from online suppliers. Just assemble and file…
blue box…
This speaks of lawyer haste/greed. A suit is filed in three days when there is no clue what happened (other than a derailment) and what caused it — and yet a lawyer can identify “negligence” and “recklessness” and “systemic failures” — when no one knows what failures occurred, and the NTSB has already said the train was operating at less than the posted speed.