Throughout the United States, pedestrians account for the majority of fatalities resulting from train accidents. In 2010, 725 people died on our nation’s railroads. While deaths from train-verses-motor vehicle collisions have decreased by 42 percent, those involving pedestrians have only declined by 6 percent. According to the Federal Railroad Administration, train-verses-pedestrian accidents are the leading cause of death in the railroad industry, reported USA Today.
Unfortunately, the toll to the family could prove more than emotional, as a recent Illinois appeals court decision permitted a bystander injured when a man was accidently struck by a train to sue his estate for damages. The ruling has implications not only for personal injury lawsuits filed in Illinois but also in California and the rest of the nation, explains an attorney.
In 2008, a train accident at the Edgebrook Metra station in Chicago, Illinois left one pedestrian dead, another injured, and resulted in a controversial court ruling concerning the liability of train accident victims for bystanders’ injuries. While rushing in the rain with an umbrella over his head to catch a Metra train, 18-year-old Hiroyuki Joho was struck by an Amtrak train that was traveling more than 70 miles per hour. The impact flung a portion of his body into 58-year-old pedestrian Gayane Zokhrabov, causing her to suffer several bone fractures. Zokhrabov filed a personal injury lawsuit against Joho’s estate. Although a Cook County judge initially dismissed it, a state appeals court has permitted the suit to proceed, reported the Chicago Tribune.
Tort laws provide people with the opportunity to file a lawsuit when someone causes them personal injury as a result of negligent behavior or as a result of intentionally bad behavior, explains an attorney. Illinois, California, and most other states afford this right to injured victims and to the family members of those who are killed. There are, however, continual questions raised regarding how far the right to sue should extend and in what cases a victim should be awarded compensation.
A plaintiff who wishes to file a tort lawsuit must prove many elements of his or her claim. This includes proving a breach of duty occurred; demonstrating that the breach was the proximate cause of injury (but for the breach, the injury would not have happened); and demonstrating that damages resulted. Once negligence is established, proving that it led to harm and that injuries occurred is relatively straightforward. Had the train not hit Joho, his body would not have flown into the air and hit Zokhrabov. Had she not been hit, she would not have sustained the injuries.
In this case, the county and state courts disagreed on one of the elements necessary to pursue a tort lawsuit: foreseeability. Foreseeability involves the proximate cause of the injury; negligence is established when it is proven that the defendant should have reasonably foreseen that his or her negligent action had the potential to harm others. While the Cook County judge found that Joho could not have predicted that his actions would have resulted in Zokhrabov’s injuries, the First Judicial District of Illinois Court of Appeals found that Joho not only acted with disregard for his own self-preservation but, given the weight and speed of the quickly approaching train and the number of people in the station, “it was reasonably foreseeable that the…train would strike, kill, and fling his body down the tracks and onto the passenger platform where Zokhrabov was waiting.”
While this case is rather unique, it raises questions as to how tort lawsuits involving train accident victims’ negligence will proceed in the future and the extent to which bystanders should have the right to seek damages.
