Personal Injury Litigation Blog

SANTA ANA, Calif., May 20, 2005

A $2.8 million verdict was handed down by a jury in Orange County, California this afternoon in the first wrongful death case stemming from one of California’s worst commuter train disasters in history. A Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight train crashed into a Metrolink Commuter train on April 23, 2002. Over 260 people were injured in this horrific crash and three people were tragically killed. One of those who perished was Larry Sorensen, age 47, who was a passenger on board the Metrolink commuter train. The trial involving the wrongful death case brought by Larry Sorensen’s parents began on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 in the Superior Court of California, Orange County, Central Justice Center, and a verdict was returned by the jury today against Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway.

The Tragic Crash - Hundreds of commuters were traveling to work on the morning of April 23, 2002 as passengers on a Metrolink Commuter train. The engineer saw a freight train traveling directly at his train on the same tracks. He stopped the train and ran through the car screaming at the passengers to get down. The Metrolink train had come to a complete stop prior to being violently struck by a Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight train. The crew of the freight train failed to comply with train signals warning of the passenger train traffic ahead, failed to slow at yellow warning signals, then failed to stop at a red signal. Investigators felt that the lack of an automatic braking system on the freight train also contributed to the cause of the crash. After several years of investigation and pretrial discovery, Burlington Northern Santa Fe admitted that it was guilty of misconduct in the operation of the train and was fully responsible for the deaths and injuries of hundreds of passengers on the Metrolink train.

The Trial - Ken and Lillian Sorensen, parents of Larry Sorensen, were represented at trial this week by attorneys Brian Panish and Kevin Boyle of Panish SHea & Boyle in Los Angeles, California.Mr. Panish stated that this verdict sends a strong message that the safety of the traveling public is of paramount importance and misconduct on the part of engineers and conductors will not be tolerated. Larry Sorensen was the model son, who was the primary caregiver for his elderly parents. The Sorensens have suffered a tragic loss that has been devastating to their family. The family hopes that after today’s verdict, that Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad and others in the same business of operating trains on the nation’s rails shared by commuter traffic do everything humanly and technically possible to make certain that reckless crashes like this one never happen again and cause other families to suffer the horrific loss of a loved one.

At 4:32 PM on Friday, September 12, a Metrolink commuter train in Chatsworth, CA, collided head-on with a Union Pacific freight train resulting in the deaths of at least 26 people with 188 or more injured. The worst railroad accident in the U.S. in fifteen years, it’s possible that the number of dead and injured could climb higher as rescue personnel look for survivors in the wreckage. There were 222 people on the northbound Metrolink train headed from Los Angeles to Moorpark, a northwestern suburb, when the accident occurred in Chatsworth. There were two passengers, the conductor and engineer aboard the freight train.

The crash occurred on a long, curving stretch of track, and Metrolink officials stated the following day that early evidence indicated that the commuter train’s engineer failed to heed a trackside red light near a junction with a railroad siding. Federal investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board are still sifting through the wreckage and gathering evidence, but a report issued the following Monday indicated that the commuter train’s engineer may have been sending and receiving cellular text messages shortly before the accident occurred.

Regular Metrolink commuters on the train said that the train usually stopped at the junction to wait for the freight train which came through at the same time each day heading to downtown Los Angeles. But on Friday the commuter train continued north without stopping which triggered an alarm at Metrolink’s dispatch center. A dispatcher called the train and successfully contacted the conductor moments before the trains collided. A young man claiming to have exchanged text messages with the commuter train’s engineer told reporters working for a local television station about them, and a reporter from the station discovered a text message allegedly signed by the engineer and dated Friday at 4:22 approximately ten minutes before the crash.

Many of the dead and injured were in the leading coach of the passenger train when the accident occurred and were crushed by the impact of the commuter train’s engine colliding with the engine of the oncoming freight train. Both trains were derailed in the accident, and shortly after impact a fire started in the leading passenger coach which made rescue attempts very dangerous and difficult. The NTSB has sent eleven investigators to the scene of the accident who plan to issue a report with their findings when their investigation into this accident is complete.