After railroad crossing wrongful death verdict, railroad accused of misconduct

Last June, a Minnesota jury found against BNSF railroad and in favor of four young men and women who were killed when the car they were riding in were struck by a train at a railroad crossing.  The families were awarded $6 million each.

The families claimed that that signals at the crossing were not operating at the time of the accident, while the railroad claimed that the drover of the car drove around the gates at the crossing.  The jury obviously rejected the railroad's theory.

Immediately following the accident, claims agents and investigators from the railroad inspected the crossing and downloaded data off the event data recorder from the train and signals.  The lawyers for the estate claims that the data was lost and/or manipulated.  They further claim that the railroad failed to produce evidence and withheld other information that would have assisted in the prosecution of the case.  They are seeking sanctions for the railroad's alleged misconduct.

Without trying to say whether the railroad did the things it is accused of (and to be fair, they deny doing anything wrong), cases like this underline the reason why it is important to hire an experienced Chicago personal injury lawyer after an accident such as this.  When there is a serious accident involving a large corporate defendant, such as a construction company, railroad, hospital, trucking company, or nursing home, one of the first things that they do is move in aggressively to investigate the circumstances of the accident and to secure evidence of what happened.  Hiring a lawyer to protect your interests as soon as possible after this kind of occurrence is key to making sure that your case is not damaged by the kind of misconduct that is alleged to have occurred in this case.