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| A more-idyllic view of tracks |
By Elizabeth Kruska
This is an unfortunate case involving a train-vehicle collision. Mr. Ziniti was a student at Norwich University, and lived near a particular railroad crossing on Slaughterhouse Road in Northfield Falls. He was generally familiar with the area, and the fact trains went through a few times a day, although he perhaps wasn’t specifically familiar with this particular crossing.
One day he drove his pickup truck through the crossing as he went to scope out a running route. He had his radio on and didn’t hear that a train was coming. He went through the crossing and was hit by the train. The rails were owned by New England Central Railroad (NECR). Mr. Ziniti sued NECR under a negligence theory.
There are some things about this crossing. It’s on a Class IV dirt road that dead-ends just beyond the crossing itself. Before the crossing there’s a one-lane covered bridge, and then the road sort of curves uphill and to the left. At the time of the crash there was one crossbuck sign on the left-hand side of the road. That signpost also had the dead-end sign on it. From the sounds of things, there were no gates on this particular crossing. Also, for some reason at one point this crossing was mis-characterized as a private crossing, so the town had not also put up a sign warning that there was a rail crossing ahead. Although, in reading about this, I’m not entirely sure where they could have put one of those signs, given the overall geography of the area.
And here’s another fascinating thing—trains have event data recorders, just like airplanes. I had no idea! Also, so do some vehicles. In this case, the train’s data recorder showed that the whistle was blown for 11 seconds before Mr. Ziniti’s truck was hit. There is also information that the whistle was the right loudness under federal regulations, although I don’t know how they knew that. Mr. Ziniti’s truck’s data recorder showed that he had slowed down to 6 miles per hour at the time he was hit, but that he didn’t stop all the way. The train operators saw the truck and tried to use the emergency brake, but were unable to stop the train before it hit the truck.
Mr. Ziniti sued NECR, alleging negligence on a number of factors having to do with sight-lines, crossing repair, and signage. After lots of expert work and discovery the parties filed motions for summary judgment. This narrowed things down a bit; the parties then tried the remaining parts of the case to a jury, which found that NECR was not negligent, and the court entered judgment in favor of the railroad. Mr. Ziniti appeals various things, and SCOV affirms.
First SCOV tackles an issue regarding the crossbuck sign and lack of an advance warning sign. Plaintiff contended that the single crossbuck sign on the lefthand side of the road wasn’t adequate to provide notice to motorists that there was a train crossing ahead. After much back and forth about whether this was adequate, the issue really became one of whether or not the fact of the inadequacy contributed to the collision. It isn’t just that there was a duty to warn, or that the duty was breached causing injury, but also that there was a link between the breach and the injury.
SCOV agreed that the fact there was no crossbuck on the right-hand side couldn’t possibly the cause of the crash. The reason was because the way this particular road was shaped, it made more sense for the sign to be on the left since that is what would be visible to motorists coming out of the covered bridge. It’s not even clear that a sign on the right side would be visible to someone coming out of the bridge.
Also, because of the layout of the road, there wasn’t really a suitable place where there could be a sign warning of a rail crossing ahead, either. There was an issue about the fact this crossing was mis-characterized as a “private” crossing for some time, and therefore the town didn’t put up an advance warning sign. SCOV is willing to entertain the possibility that the lack of such a sign could contribute to a crash, but not in this case.
You may be thinking, “Gee, I wonder what this rail crossing actually looks like.” I was thinking the same thing, and so was a juror, who asked the court if they could all go do a site visit. Mr. Ziniti didn’t object but the railroad did, and the court ultimately said no. SCOV says it was fully within the trial court’s discretion to deny the request. The problem was that the trial was six years after the accident, and it happened at a different time of year. There were changes, especially to the foliage. If the jurors visited, it might not have given them an accurate view of the crossing. SCOV agrees the trial court was fine in denying the request.
Next there was an issue involving the “Cutting of Trees” statute. It regulates (get ready for it) the cutting of trees. Specifically, it indicates that trees and shrubs have to be “destroyed at reasonable times within the surveyed boundaries… for a distance of 80 rods in each direction from all public grade crossings.” I happen to love the lesser-used units of measurement. I didn’t even need to look at the footnote to know that 80 rods is basically 2 furlongs. Oh. Sorry. A quarter of a mile.
Anyway, there was an issue at trial regarding an instruction to the jury, because it was agreed that the railroad didn’t follow the cutting of trees statute around the Slaughterhouse Road crossing. After much back and forth, the court landed on a jury instruction. Mr. Ziniti moved for a directed verdict, arguing that NECR’s failure to trim the trees appropriately was negligent.
SCOV’s take is this: Just because NECR didn’t follow the statute doesn’t conclusively establish that NECR is liable. First of all, it doesn’t establish negligence per se. That is to say, simply doing or not doing something in violation of a statute doesn’t mean therefore they are negligent. All it does is create a presumption that they were negligent, and NECR is able to rebut that with their own information and facts.
Second, in order to get to the point of negligence, there still has to be proof of injury and causation. Because those two elements aren’t met by the mere fact of not cutting trees for eighty rods, there’s no way a trial court can rule as a matter of law in favor of the plaintiff. The fact of not cutting trees in violation of the statute was more like a single piece of evidence leading to an overall theory of negligence, rather than the whole of the evidence.
When SCOV reviews a trial court’s decision to deny a motion for directed verdict, they will uphold it as long as there’s sufficient evidence to support a lawful theory of the nonmoving party. SCOV again says the trial court was fine to have done what it did.
The last issue involves the Sudden Emergency Doctrine. It involves this idea that sometimes a motorist, when faced with a sudden emergency, isn’t necessarily always going to think through his or her options about what to do before acting. It helps to avoid the armchair quarterbacking that could happen by people looking back and saying, “Well, what he should have done is…” Sure, there are probably lots of things you should do in situations, but let’s be real – when there’s a train coming at you, you don’t really map out all your options. You just do what you do and hope for the best. It appears the theory here was that if there was any idea Mr. Ziniti’s own conduct led to the crash, that his culpability should be lessened by the emergent nature of the situation. This is relevant if NECR was raising a defense of comparative negligence, saying that Mr. Ziniti’s conduct contributed to the accident.
Mr. Ziniti wanted an instruction about this, and the trial court declined. SCOV affirms on this issue. If a party challenges an instruction, the party’s burden is to show that the instruction (or lack thereof) was wrong and that prejudice resulted from that particular error. SCOV finds that Mr. Ziniti can’t show that here. The jury found on its jury form that NECR wasn’t negligent at all. It didn’t even get to whether Mr. Ziniti was comparatively negligent, and if so, whether that would be lessened. Since they didn’t even get to the question, there’s no way to so that he was prejudiced by not including the instruction.
So, SCOV affirms this one.
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