Baby in stroller dragged by CTA el train

A young mother had a terrible scare last night on the north side of the City as she tried to board a CTA el train at the Morse el stop.  She was pushing her baby in its stroller onto the el train car when the doors closed.  The train pulled out of the station with the stroller trapped in inside.  It eventually fell off the side of the train car and onto the tracks.  Fortunately, the child was not seriously injured due to the CTA el train accident.

The CTA is a common carrier, and as such, owes a legal duty to its passengers to exercise the highest degree of care for the safety of its passengers.  This duty runs from the time that they are boarding the train or bus up until the time that they reach a place of safety after getting off.  Given that the stroller was trapped inside the door, this child was owed that highest degree of care for her safety.

It is also pretty clear that the CTA violated that duty of care.  The train operator is responsible for making sure that the passengers are on the train before closing the doors and making sure that the doors are properly closed before putting the train into motion.  This obviously was not done here.  Also, the CTA at one time had conductors on every train who responsibilities included watching for passengers boarding and getting off the train.  Those positions were eliminated in budgetary cutbacks.  It obviously was possible to do the job of watching for passengers better than they did in this case.  In many ways, this accident was a product of the the budgetary choices made by the CTA.

As an experienced Chicago personal injury lawyer, one thing that I would do immediately is to notify the CTA of the potential claim in order to make sure that all of the records or videotapes are preserved and retain experts to help observe any inspection or repairs of the el train car in order to help determine how that train was able to leave the station without the doors being securely closed.