OMAHA — A Union Pacific engineer has received a $135,000 settlement to end a lawsuit that challenged the way a private investigator looked into the engineer’s injury claim, the Omaha World-Herald reports.
The lawsuit, filed in October 2000 against Union Pacific Railroad and the St. Louis-based investigation firm Ridpath & Hoogstraten LLC, was settled out of court last month, said Charles Armbruster, a Wood River, Ill., attorney representing the railroad worker. Both Union Pacific Corp., and its subsidiary, Union Pacific Railroad, are based in Omaha.
Union Pacific spokesman John Bromley said he would not comment on the case.
Lon Ridpath of Ridpath & Hoogstraten said his company’s insurance carrier paid all of the $135,000 settlement.
Ridpath said his firm did nothing wrong in the case but could not elaborate further.
Ken Jones, editor for Missouri Lawyers Weekly, said the case illustrates what attorneys and their companies face if they conduct a surveillance improperly. The Missouri Lawyers Weekly featured the case in its Monday publication.
The case stemmed from the injury claim of rail worker Ricky Foutch, 51, of DeQuoin, Ill. He alleged that in a February 1999 accident he injured his neck and back while working at a Union Pacific rail yard in East St. Louis, Ill. Foutch filed a claim against Union Pacific in St. Clair County, Ill., seeking damages for his injury. A jury later awarded Foutch $820,260. Union Pacific is appealing that award.
In presenting Foutch’s case, his lawyers discovered that investigators working for Ridpath & Hoogstraten had videotaped him on his own property, said Armbruster. The videotapes showed Foutch doing work such as riding a lawn mower, Armbruster said.
But Foutch filed a second lawsuit challenging the videotapes of him on his 80-acre wooded property as improper.
“We realized there had been an invasion of his privacy, and we filed the second lawsuit,” Armbruster said. “There’s no way you could see Ricky in those locations in his property from any public location.”
The second lawsuit was the subject of the recent settlement agreement.