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South Florida Woman Suing FEC For Her Stupidity

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[quote user="Murphy Siding"][quote user="Bucyrus"] ........what if this pedestrian strike were not just at any one of an infinite number of random locations along the railroad, but rather, at a specific point where pedestrians routinely and frequently crossed the track to get to a public jogging path, and frequently began their jogging routine prior to crossing the track?What if the railroad company had become aware of this crossing point used by joggers, and had noticed that they frequently are listening to I-pods, and appear to cross the tracks oblivious to the danger, while apparently engrossed in their typically mind numbing jogging routine?        [/quote]What if the sky falls down, and all the trees are broken?[}:)]     I have a hard time agreeing with you on this train of thought.  What if the railroad company had become aware of this crossing point used by teenagers to play chicken with the trains?  Wearing I-pods? At night?  While intoxicated?  I don't see how the railroad somehow takes on super-liability for other's irresponsible actions.[/quote]I don't know how this liability pie will be sliced and diced in this case.  My larger point is that I don't believe that it is a forgone conclusion that railroads are automatically always right in these types of cases even though the preponderance of popular sentiment is sure of that.I mentioned that the point where the woman got hit might have been a frequently used crossing point for distracted joggers (as is suggested in the article I linked).  You ask why that matters, and ask how it would differ from a point where teenagers play chicken with trains or engage in other illegal behavior.  It is true that my example and your hypothetical example are identical in terms of trespass.  But trespass and other illegal behavior (no matter what kind) is not the point of my questions about the location where the woman was hit.  My point was that the crossing point had become routinely and frequently used, and furthermore, that the railroad may have become aware of that use.  The routine use of the crossing point that had become physically developed as a pathway used in conjunction with a public trail system may have developed in a way that caused users to become habituated and less wary than they would normally be.  And because railroad crews and officials are expected to be vigilant about conditions along the track, they might be expected to have become aware of the routine use of this crossing point.  If so, they ought to conclude that the concentration of illegal crossing activity might pose a higher risk of injury or death to pedestrians than what would exist otherwise along the track.  So the railroad's awareness of the increased danger and their failure to do anything about it (if both are true) may have increased their liability.
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