(The following story by Michael Collins appeared on the Ventura County Star website on September 6, 2010.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A campaign to change a federal law that could limit the amount of damages paid to victims seriously injured in a Metrolink train crash near Chatsworth appears to be gaining some traction in Congress.
A congressional panel that has jurisdiction over railroad issues confirmed last week it has begun exploring the possibility of raising the $200 million cap that federal law places on payouts to train crash victims.
“We are looking into this issue,” said James Berard, spokesman for the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “We’re looking at, if we increase the cap, what’s the right amount to raise it to, what are the implications of that, etc. This issue is still sort of in the investigative stage.’’
Meanwhile, several other federal lawmakers joined Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Simi Valley, this week in publicly calling on Congress to take another look at the cap after victims of the Metrolink crash complained that $200 million would come nowhere close to paying their medical bills.
“I oppose this $200 million cap on liability and believe at a minimum that there should be an exception for gross negligence,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. “I’ve directed my staff to study this issue to find a way to ensure that survivors and the families of those killed in the Metrolink crash are compensated fairly.”
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., also has raised concerns over the cap. “Sen. Boxer believes the victims and their families deserve justice, and she is working to ensure that they are compensated fairly for their losses,” said her spokesman, Zachary Coile.
Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara, said she favors “retroactively repealing the existing cap for private companies involved in passenger rail accidents, like the Metrolink commuter train collision.”
“It’s the only way to ensure the victims of this tragedy receive fair compensation for the damage caused to their lives,” Capps said.
The $200 million limit on payouts to train crash victims has been in place since passage of the Amtrak Reform and Accountability Act of 1997. The cap was part of a broader package meant to provide some stability for Amtrak, which has been beset by financial troubles for years.
Attorneys for Metrolink and Connex Railroad have filed court papers asserting their intention to accept the maximum $200 million in liability as part of a potential settlement stemming from the crash near Chatsworth.
Twenty-five people — most of them Ventura County residents — were killed and more than 100 were injured when a Metrolink commuter train collided head-on with a Union Pacific freight train on Sept. 12, 2008. The National Transportation Safety Board concluded the accident was caused by a train engineer who ran a red light while sending text messages on his cell phone.
The engineer, Robert Sanchez, was among those killed. He was an employee of Connex, the private firm that was running the commuter train system at the time.
Connex is a subsidiary of Veolia Transportation, a French company that operates bus, rail and other services throughout North America.
The possibility that damages could be capped at $200 million has outraged the train crash victims, who argue their claims for medical bills and other expenses could top $600 million. Some question whether Veolia should qualify for the $200 million cap, which was intended to help public entities.
Gallegly said he has been talking to several lawmakers, including Democratic Rep. James Oberstar, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, to determine whether it would be possible to pursue legislation to change the cap so that the victims can be compensated fairly.
“We want to make sure these folks are not left out in the cold,” Gallegly said.
One of the key issues that lawmakers will be looking at is whether the liability cap should apply to private companies such as Connex and Veolia. Critics argue the statue was intended to apply only to publicly operated passenger lines, not private companies.
Rep. Grace Napolitano, D-Santa Fe Springs, a member of the House transportation panel, has begun circulating a letter to lawmakers calling on the committee to retroactively repeal the cap as it pertains to private companies. The cap would remain in place for Amtrak, Metrolink and other public passenger rail services.
The law that established the $200 million cap is a vague, badly written statute that has never been tested, said Stephen C. Yeazell, interim dean at the UCLA law school.
“I think there would be grounds to challenge it,” Yeazell said.
The law required Amtrak to carry a $200 million insurance policy and put in place the $200 million liability cap to protect the public carrier against any excessive damages. Only Amtrak was required to carry the insurance policy, “but if you just read the statute, the cap sounds as if it applies to all railroad accidents,” Yeazell said.
“I think there is an interesting and difficult question about whether the $200 million cap should be read to apply only to Amtrak because, after all, only Amtrak is required to have the $200 million policy, or whether the cap should be seen as applying to all railroads. And if it’s seen as applying to all railroads, is it constitutional? That is, it’s a cap in which nobody gets anything in return, as they did in the Amtrak situation.’’
Removing the cap to benefit the Metrolink victims would pose a different kind of legal problem, Yeazell said, because that would involve modifying the law and applying the changes retroactively.
“I think that’s a difficult question,” Yeazell said.