Washington Post, “Metro Girds for Flood of Lawsuits Expected Over Deadly Crash“:

It took just two days after last month’s deadly Metro crash for the first personal injury lawsuit to be filed in federal court. Five others have followed, one seeking as much as $25 million in damages. Legal experts said the number of liability claims for the crash, which killed nine and injured 80, can be expected to rise for months and, perhaps, years.

Legal damages could run into the tens of millions of dollars and, if negligence is proved and punitive damages awarded, they could easily reach into the hundreds of millions, legal analysts said. Wherever federal authorities place responsibility for the tragedy, plaintiffs will be seeking money, first and foremost, from Metro.

Earlier post on the Metro suits and the litigation industry.

The Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service and the District of Columbia has scheduled an oversight hearing for Tuesday entitled, “Back on Track: WMATA Red Line Metrorail Accident and Continual Funding Challenges.”

In light of the Monday, June 22nd Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) Metrorail Red Line accident and the subsequent ongoing investigations, the upcoming hearing will examine what progress has been made in the investigation, explore the steps WMATA has taken since the accident to ensure the safety of riders and employees, and provide an overview of various Metrorail systems, equipment, and safety policies and procedures. The hearing will also touch on such topics as WMATA’s aging infrastructure, challenges to funding the transit authority’s Capital Improvement Program (CIP) and industry-wide rail safety standards and practices.

As we were reading the American Association for Justice’s summer convention brochure, it was the railroad litigation group that had the lengthiest list of topics of all the focus areas. From the AAJ brochure:

Railroad Law Section, Railroad/Highway Crossing and Derailment Litigation Group & Federal Employer ’s Liability Act (FELA) Litigation Group
All Day
Theme: Hot Topics in Today’s World of Railroad Injury Law

• Applying the “Rules of the Road” to Lock Down Liability
• Railroad Passenger Claims against AMTRAK and Commuter Railroads in the Aftermath of the LA Metrolink Disaster
• Panel: Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On—Whole Body Vibration and Train Crews
• Panel: Discovery Against the Railroad: Dogging the Data in the Digital Age
• Panel: Guiding the Plaintiff Through Dark Territory—Shining a Light on Railroad Defenses
• Panel: Update on Railroad Law, Views from FELA, and Crossing Perspectives
• Landing the Big Rail Case While Keeping Your Moral Compass (ethics)
• Ethical Preparation and Presentation of Experts in Railroad Cases (ethics)
• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury: What a Train Wreck!

What a train wreck! Yuck, yuck.

At any rate, just an interesting list of topics to consider as the lawsuit industry gears up against the WMATA for the Metro accident.

Brooks Schuelke, a personal injury attorney in Austin, Texas, writing at the trial lawyers’ blogging consortium, Injury Board.com, “Washington, DC Train/Rail Disaster Kills At Least Seven & Injures More. What Does It Mean For Austin?”

I’ve been emailing my friend Rick Shapiro, a Northern Virginia/DC personal injury lawyer, who happens to be one of the top railroad injury lawyers in the country. Rick’s a former head of the American Association for Justice Railroad Law section (and now one of Rick’s partners currently holds that post), and he’s written extensively on railroad safety. It’s really too early to tell what’s going on with this particular Metro crash, but Rick tells me that one of the things that concerns him is that the Metro was working on the tracks near the incident. This work could have likely caused some type of problem. As far as the operator’s failure goes, Rick says that he’s had previous cases involving Metro train wrecks where the Metro drivers were so overworked that fatigue played a big part in the wreck. I also saw a note that the operator of the train involved was one of the most inexperienced in the Metro system.

Well, those are reasonable observations. It IS too early to tell what’s going on, and there ARE reasons for concern. But surely as night follows day…

Terrible accident. Our sincere condolences to those who lost loved ones on the train, and to the injured, best wishes on a quick recovery.

For all the problems daily newspapers have these days, they are still the best-equipped news organizations for telling a story of this nature — especially when they use the tools of the new media, including blogs.

The Washington Post’s “Get There” transportation and commuting blog is posting regular updates, including the highlights of a just-completed news conference:

• There were no black boxes on the train that hit the stationary train, so no data will be available from that train
• There were 9 event recorders on the train that was struck, so that data will eventually be recovered,
• NTSB will be looking at possible mechanical causes, signalling and operator training among other issues.
• Perhaps most significant: NTSB says it told Metro after the 2004 crash that it should put event recorders on the 1000 series of trains, and should make them more crashworthy. Metro did not do so. The 1000 series comprises about 30 percent of the fleet, and is being phased out. Metro head John Catoe did not have an immediate response about why those recommendations were not followed, but said the agency would do a full investigation.

Our only observation would be that if an institution can’t do the little things right — for example, escalator repair — the odds are greater that eventually big things go wrong, too.