Articles Tagged with oakland train accident lawyer

trainspeedOn Tuesday, we discussed non-passenger accidents involving San Francisco’s Municipal Railway (“Muni”).  After that article posted, in a bizarre and tragic twist of fate, multiple accidents occurred in our region including several different transit providers.  The thought and hearts of our Oakland train accident lawyer and our entire legal team go out to the individuals and families affected by these tragedies.  Given Tuesday’s events, we wanted to touch on the issue of train accidents and train fatalities once more and take a broader look at accidents involving railroad vehicles.

A Tragic Day on the Tracks

The Oakland Tribune reports that Tuesday evening’s commute saw collisions involving every major public transit agency in our region, including two deadly accidents.  Officials say it is unclear what exactly led to the four separate collisions.  In particular, in the first three incidents, the article suggests that it is unclear why the parties involved were present on the tracks.

Last week’s tragic train derailment on Amtrak’s northeast corridor raised a lot of safety and regulatory issues with commuter trains and infrastructure. It also shined a renewed spotlight on an 18 year old federal law that could limit the amount of money victims of Tuesday’s derailment receive from Amtrak.

Congressional limits on payouts from train accidents and derailments

In 1997, Congress passed the Amtrak Reform and Accountability Act, which was designed to provide financial support to Amtrak. As a part of that bill, Congress placed a limit on the amount of money that could be recovered by victims of a train accident. The cap applies to all railroads, not just Amtrak.  Based on that legislation, victims of train accidents are currently limited to a maximum payout of $200 million. The cap is not per injury; the total amount that a railroad can payout per accident is $200 million, regardless of the number of injuries or fatalities. train-tracks-2-1350733-m

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