Jury faults NY railroad — mostly — for 2015 crossing crash that killed 6

A commuter train is largely responsible for a fiery and deadly fire Train-SUV collision in 2015 At an intersection in a New York City suburb, a jury has reached a verdict determining how the bill for any damages will be divided.

The verdict, reached Tuesday, found Metro-North Railroad liable for 71 percent of the deaths of five passengers and injuries to others, and 63 percent for the death of the SUV driver whose car was on the tracks. The jury blamed train engineer Steven Smalls, a Metro-North employee, and the railroad’s oversight of the line’s electrified third rail.

The jury in White Plains, New York, found SUV driver Ellen Brody 37% at fault for her own death and 29% at fault for the deaths and injuries of the passengers.

Any damages will be determined at a future trial. No date has been set.

Andrew Maloney, an attorney for some of the approximately 30 injured passengers, estimates that compensation for all the dead and injured could run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

He and another attorney for the injured passengers, Ben Rubinowitz, said Thursday they were pleased with the ruling.

“Hopefully Metro-North will do a better job of keeping passengers safe going forward,” Rubinowitz said.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the railroad, disagrees with the ruling and is “considering all legal options,” spokesman Aaron Donovan said.

An attorney for Brody’s family said he was pleased the jury agreed the railroad and engineer were negligent, but was disappointed with how much blame was assigned to her.

“When you look at the facts of the case, she did nothing wrong,” said attorney Philip Russotti.

Messages seeking comment were sent to the engineer’s lawyers and others involved in the complicated case.

A Metro-North train struck Brody’s SUV during evening rush hour on February 3, 2015, at a grade crossing in Valhalla, about 20 miles (32 km) north of New York City.

Brody, a jeweler on her way to a business meeting, had driven onto the tracks while driving through traffic in the dark in an unfamiliar area. When the barrier arm came down on her SUV, she got out, checked the car, got back in and continued driving onto the tracks.

Three seconds before impact, the driver hit the emergency brakes, but the train hit Brody’s SUV at about 50 mph (80 km/h), pushing it off the track.

Part of the railway electrified third rail was ripped off the groundpunctured the SUV’s gas tank and sliced ​​through the train’s first passenger car, containing burning debris.

“It was like a spear on fire,” Rubinowitz said.

The National Transportation Safety Board found that the design of the third rail that supplies the power played a role in the deaths and injuries. The board said there was a potential safety issue in the railroad’s lack of a “controlled failure mechanism” that would split the third rail in such situations.

The NTSB concluded that Brody’s actions were the likely cause of the crash. But her family and attorney allege she was endangered by inadequate warning signs, a poorly designed crosswalk, a traffic light that didn’t give cars enough time to clear the tracks for oncoming trains, and the engineer’s failure to slow down when he saw the reflection of something dark on the tracks ahead.

“All it took her was two or three seconds” to get across the tracks, Russotti said by phone Thursday.

Attorneys for the injured passengers argued that the engineer bore more responsibility than Brody.

“We kept it very simple: He had an obligation to slow down,” Rubinowitz said by phone.

Smalls, the engineer, testified at the trial that he did not know what the reflection was, according to LoHud.comHe told the jury he pressed the horn instead of immediately hitting the brakes, fearing an abrupt stop could injure passengers.

“I have to relive this every day of my life,” Smalls said, who was injured in the crash. He settled with Metro-North in 2019 for $1 million, according to LoHud.com.

The settlement was a thorn in the side of the injured passengers, Maloney said.

“It was quite insulting that the man who was partly responsible for the collision a few years ago was paid a significant amount of money, while the injured passengers have received nothing so far,” he said by telephone.