TRIAL VICTORY FOR BNSF IN GRADE CROSSING FATALITY CASE
On November 21, 2024, the Mullican & Hart Trial Team secured a defense verdict in a grade crossing fatality case after a three-week trial in Cook County, Illinois, and a favorable verdict against the surviving passenger. The decedent driverdied failed to yield at a rural railroad crossing near Erie, Illinois, and was hit by a BNSF train. The driver was fatally injured upon impact. His 16-year-old daughter survived, but sustained internal injuries, orthopedic injuries, and a traumatic brain injury. As a result of the train collision, the passenger had to learn to walk and talk while receiving patient rehabilitative therapy for years following the subject accident.
The Law Office of Jill M. Webb, LLC from Chicago represented both the driver’s estate and daughter and filed claims against BNSF for the driver’s wrongful death, a survival action on behalf of the driver, and for personal injuries of the daughter. With a host of experts including James R. Loumiet and Brian Hansen, Plaintiffs asserted that BNSF’s failure to clear trees and bushes created a visual obstruction that prevented drivers from seeing an approaching train, Plaintiff also alleged that the surface of the crossing was rough, skewed at an angle, and was “humped,” which made the crossing extra-hazardous, and therefore BNSF should have installed flashing lights and gates. Plaintiffs demanded $24,414,626.46 from the jury for the daughter’s personal injury claim plus an unspecified amount for the driver’s wrongful death claims.
BNSF showed that the rural crossing involved was just like any other rural crossing in Illinois and was not extra-hazardous as claimed by Plaintiffs. BNSF proved that the driver was very familiar with the crossing having crossed it without incident hundreds, if not thousands of times, in the six (6) years before this accident. BNSF also demonstrated that the crossbucks and yield sign provided sufficient warning to drivers. BNSF also conclusively established that it had complied with all state regulations regarding vegetation at the crossing and provided the driver with nearly three (3) times the required sight distance. It was further demonstrated that the train was available to be seen had the driver looked and thus the driver was himself negligent because he failed to yield to BNSF’s plainly visible train when it was in hazardous proximity to the grade crossing.
BNSF defended a 1% liability case as to the passenger. As such, BNSF suggested an anchor number of $1,400,000.00 to the jury for the daughter’s real world monetary damages. The jury agreed with BNSF’s arguments and entered a verdict in BNSF’s favor on the driver’s wrongful death and survival claims. The jury also entered a verdict for the daughter in the amount of $832,400.00, far below the anchor number offered by BNSF. As a result of pre-trial settlements by dismissed co-defendants, this verdict amount was totally offset to zero.