(The following story by Sara Cunningham appeared on the Louisville Courier-Journal website on January 18.)
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Three lawsuits over a fiery train derailment in Bullitt County were filed in federal court in Louisville on Tuesday — almost one year after the incident.
The new filings, including one seeking class-action status, bring the number of suits pending over the derailment to nine.
All the lawsuits allege that because of negligence, CSX was responsible for the Jan. 16, 2007, crash off Huber Station Road and that the company did not warn residents of possible danger quickly enough afterward.
During the incident, about 500 residents were evacuated, some people were taken to hospitals, and thick, black smoke spread for miles. The train was carrying chemicals that are considered hazardous.
According to the lawsuits, the derailment led to physical injury, emotional trauma and property damage for more than 30 plaintiffs.
Six of the lawsuits were filed last year specifically against CSX, the company that owns the tracks and operated the train.
Gary Sease, a CSX spokesman, has said he cannot comment on pending litigation.
The three new suits added defendants: General Electric Capital Services Inc., General Electric Railcar Services Corp. and Genesee & Wyoming Inc. According to the lawsuits, those three companies shared in the ownership of one of the cars that derailed.
While there will be no official cause of the derailment until the National Transportation Safety Board releases its report in a couple of months, CSX said its own investigation found a problem with a bolt caused the derailment.
The bolt was a part of a railroad car repeatedly referred to in the new suits as “railcar no. 18” or “AN 5696.” The three new defendants shared responsibility with CSX for maintenance of that car, according to the lawsuits.
Calls to representatives of the three new defendants were not returned yesterday.
One of the three new lawsuits is a class action with 23 plaintiffs.
The suit asks that the court create a class definition that would include any individual or business harmed by the derailment, said John Spainhour, a Shepherdsville-based attorney whose firm is one of six tied to the class-action suit.
In the end, that would mean residents could file claims even if they weren’t specifically named in the suit, Spainhour said.
Some plaintiffs chose to bring separate lawsuits because their injuries “were unique from what was included in the class action,” he said.
Several of the suits could be consolidated further in coming months, Spainhour said.
“We’re all still in the early stages,” said A.V. Conway, an attorney based in Hartford, Ky., who represents a plaintiff with a lawsuit separate from the class-action lawsuit.
There will be a lot of interest in the safety board’s report, he acknowledged.
“It should give us more specific information as to what their investigators found,” Conway said. “Although, we’re pretty sure we already have a good idea of what caused the problem.”