Posted on 05/14/2015 4:06:50 PM PDT by Kid Shelleen
Amtrak likely faces hundreds of millions of dollars in claims from victims of the derailment of a northeast regional train at Frankford Junction in Philadelphia Tuesday night, according to personal-injury lawyers who specialize in transportation accidents.
Because Congress capped such payouts for Amtrak in 1997, money to compensate victims probably will fall short of what is needed, these lawyers say.
Under the Amtrak Reform and Accountability Act, damages paid by the government to people injured in Amtrak derailments and families of those passengers killed was limited to $200 million per crash. But with eight killed and about 200 of the 238 passengers injured, some very seriously, claims from this week's crash almost surely will exceed that amount.
(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...
Amtrak engineers are government employees. Will the gay engineer be fired, or just reassigned to different duties?
this guy was trying to do his own version of German Wings
He should be charged with manslaughter at least. There is no doubt that it was at least gross negligence that cased the derailment. For all we know he crashed on purpose.
Why would 200 million not be enough? Most is for the dead and critically injured. The light to moderately injured should get their medical expenses, time off work plus a little extra. Nothing more.
Part of what harms this economy is the greedy nature of our legal system.
The engineer should certainly be charged with a crime of some sort.
I agree on manslaughter.. but my question was, what is likely to happen?
Yes, 8 counts of involuntary manslaughter.
(Not that that does the victims any good.)
Get your claim in early while there is still some money to be had.
You forgot "promoted." Don't we need a new Transportation Secretary?
Technically, they are not. Amtrak is structured as a corporation. The federal government owns all (or nearly all) of the stock in the corproation, but Amtrak employees are employees of the corporation, not the federal government.
The critically injured will get a lot more than the estates of the dead. Dead people have no long-term medical care, living expenses, or long term pain and suffering.
$200 million isn’t even close to enough.
Well that was a surprise. Who’da thought it would happen that fast? Lawyers on speed dial.
My belief is that he did this on purpose too, either it was done on purpose or he was sexting at the time. If the Germanwings pilot had survived he would have claimed he had no memory of the accident either. If it wasn’t for the fact that the other pilot was locked out and begging for help to get back in no one would have known that Lupitz did it on purpose
You think that sounds good right up until you, a family member or friend have their lives destroyed.
Frankly....I’m surprised Congress didn’t exempt Amtrak from any injury claims.
Under the Amtrak Reform and Accountability Act, damages paid by the government to people injured in Amtrak derailments and families of those passengers killed was limited to $200 million per crash.
This country has so many problems....I fear for my kids...
-Government limiting its own liability is nothing new, if gov desired, it would say, “no liability”.
The various states have jumped on that band wagon in recent years, limiting their liability in wrongful imprisonment cases and in 24 states, there’s no money awarded at all.
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2012/03/us/table.wrongful.convictions/
The first thing should be, hold this engineer ACCOUNTABLE for his lapse in judgment.
Or is this like that copilot of the Germanwings Airbus A320. Andreas Lubitz, who DELIBERATELY crashed the plane, and had apparently rehearsed for the glory moment?
Copilot Lubitz had the good grace to die, so we can no longer hold him accountable by any earthly power. But Engineer Bostian, we can get our hands on him.
Protected class, be damned.
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