(The following story by Scott Goldberg appeared on the KARE 11 website on September 15, 2010.)
RAMSEY, Minn. – For seven years, the Shannon family has wanted to stop and just remember Bridgette, who died when she and three friends were in a car that collided violently with a Burlington Northern Santa Fe Freight train in 2003.
That process keeps getting interrupted by days like Tuesday, when the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled there must be a retrial in the case that came after the crash, for which a jury found the railroad company responsible and awarded the victims’ families a historic $21.6 million verdict.
“Seven long years,” her mother Denise Shannon said after the ruling Tuesday. “And it has not given us a chance to grieve the way a normal family should grieve after they’ve lost a child or a sister.”
The appeals court ruled BNSF was “deprived of a fair trial” because the jury that reached that 2008 verdict had been given improper instructions about whether federal or state laws applied to their deliberations.
“It was a technicality,” Bridgett’s father David Shannon said. “It doesn’t erase the fact, nor does BNSF dispute the fact, that what happened, happened.”
Since the 2003 crash, BNSF has maintained that the car carrying the four young friends ignored warning signals and drove around the gates at the Ferry Street crossing in Anoka. But the jury that heard the case, in 2008, believed BNSF destroyed or hid evidence and awarded the families the multi-million dollar verdict.
A year later, Washington County Judge Ellen Maas added a $4.2 million award for the families as punishment for the railroad.
Brian Frazier, 20; Corey Chase, 20; and Henry Rhoades, 19, also died in the crash. So far, their families haven’t seen a penny of the money.
The appeals court upheld the damages awarded by the jury and judge Maas but said there has to be a new trial before the families get paid.
For its part, BNSF released a statement Tuesday saying it was pleased a new trial had been granted.
“While we have deep sympathy for the families of the individuals involved in this tragic event,” the statement said, “we believe than an objective and properly instructed jury will find that the great weight of evidence demonstrates that BNSF acted properly.”
The Shannons, who see themselves fighting a corporation with bottomless pockets, say they’ll keep fighting for Bridgett and the others as long as they have to.
“If it takes my last dying breath to see this through, it’s gonna happen,” David said. “We’re not going to let it go.”