(The following editorial appeared on the Boston Herald website on September 13.)
BOSTON — Around 4 a.m. two years ago one Brian Hopkins, 24, apparently tried to get into one of Amtrak’s Acela trains parked at South Station – closed at that hour – but could not. He then decided to climb up on the train roof.
There, investigators believe, he touched the 25,000-volt overhead wire that powers the train and set himself on fire. He suffered third-degree burns over 85 percent of his body, and doctors eventually had to amputate his left hand and left leg.
He’s lucky to be alive. But in this litigious society of ours that’s never enough. Now he and his parents have sued Amtrak.
Hopkins, an architect from New York City, had been visiting friends and bar-hopping. According to his friends he decided he “wanted to get back to New York” and left them at 2 a.m. One friend set off in a cab to find him but failed.
According to the suit in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, N.Y., reported by the New York Post, Amtrak “should have known that persons trespassed” in South Station, should have been monitoring the area, should have cut off electricity to the overhead wires and should have parked trains somewhere else.
Amtrak can defend its security measures, warnings and the handling of trains – but it shouldn’t have to. Is Amtrak supposed to assume that every trespasser could stagger into or try to grab 25,000 volts atop a train? Is Amtrak supposed to assume that trespassers don’t know – or perhaps are in a state unable to appreciate – that high voltage can kill?
Such ridiculous lawsuits are virtually unknown in systems in which the loser pays the winner’s costs, as in England. They are a good argument for adopting the same rule in the United States.
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