Family of woman suing Tex-Mex Railway

[Anonymous]

Anytime you here of an accident of this nature where a train is involved it is always the same... "It was the railroad's fault" [:(!]

[zardoz]

Christopher Maher, Alice Echo-News Journal

The family of a woman who was struck by a train while walking on the tracks in Alice in September filed a lawsuit Friday against the Texas Mexican Railway Company claiming the company's negligence led to the woman's death.

The suit was filed in the 79th District Court by Jose Franco, Antonio Franco, Danny Franco, Juan Franco and Dalia Ortiz, on behalf of the estate of Emma Franco. In addition to the Texas Mexican Railway Company, Mexrail Inc., Kansas City Southern Railway Company, Abraham Solis and William Paul Barker are all named as defendants in the suit.

According to court documents, Watson was struck by a train on Sept. 27, 2005 on which Solis and Barker were the conductor and engineer.

The suit claims the defendants were negligent in "not providing warning or sufficient warning" to Franco before she was struck.

The plaintiffs seek through the suit damages including those related to physical pain, mental anguish, loss of earning capacity and funeral and burial expenses.

According to a police report of the incident, witnesses told police that they had observed Franco walking on the tracks heading west and had heard and seen the train apply the emergency brakes and blow the horn to get her to move off the tracks. The report also included statements from Solis and Barker in which they reportedly told police they saw Franco try to move off the track just as the train hit her on her left side. The report stated the engineer observed Franco holding a container and police found a beer can lying in the area of impact. An autopsy conducted by the Corpus Christi Medical Examiner later revealed Franco's blood-alcohol level was at .1, just above the legal limit of .08.

http://www.aliceechonews.com/articles/2006/06/06/local_news/news02.txt

I know this type of situation is old news to us on the forum, but sometimes I just can't get over the absurdity of some of these claims. I sincerrly hope the train crew counter-sues those morons for the stress they are about to be put through. The train crew is going to prove themselves innocent.