(The following report appeared on the Chicago Tribune website on February 8.)
CHICAGO — The family of a 10-year-old Schaumburg boy killed by a Metra train last year at the River Grove station has filed a lawsuit against the commuter railroad and three of its engineers.
The wrongful-death lawsuit, filed Friday in Cook County Circuit Court, cited alleged negligence by Metra for “carelessly” allowing a westbound express train to enter the station Feb. 23 as Michael S. DeLarco crossed the tracks on a pedestrian crossing.
He crossed the tracks after getting off an eastbound Metra train with his mother and 8-year-old sister. The boy was struck and killed by the westbound train on the Metra Milwaukee District West Line.
Metra fired the three engineers involved, including a student trainee at the controls of the eastbound train, for violating safety rules designed to prevent trains from passing one another in the station.
A Metra investigation found that the westbound train should not have entered the station until the eastbound train cleared the station to give pedestrians an unobstructed view along the triple set of tracks.
The 75-page civil lawsuit also named the Soo Line Railroad Corp. and the Canadian Pacific Railway, which controlled and maintained the track.
Metra declined to comment on the lawsuit.