San Antonio Train Accident Lawyers

If you get hurt in a train accident, if you lose a loved one in a train accident, or if a train kills your livestock, you may sue the railroad company.

If damage in a railway crossing causes you to have an accident, you may sue the railroad company. The railroad company is responsible for maintaining the crossings and keeping them up to a certain standard of working order.

The railroad company is typically responsible for cattle guards on tracks running through private property. This would be true even if the private property owner is enlarging the property so that their cattle can have access to either side of the track. If this is the case for you, and a train kills your stock, the railroad company may hold liability for the value of the livestock. If the railroad company erects a fence between the track and your field, the railroad company would likely only be held responsible for injury or death to any cattle “that results from a want of ordinary care.” See §112.102, Texas Transportation Code.

Under certain circumstances, you could sue a railroad company for injury to yourself as an employee, or for the loss of a loved one who was an employee of the railroad company. It is not uncommon for the negligence of another employee, officer, or agent to cause an accident. A defect in the equipment also typically involves negligence.

The Texas Transportation Code does not allow railroad employers to include such provisions in their contractual agreements with employees. If your railroad employer has included such a provision, the Code will likely deem it to be null and void.

You may file a train accident injury claim if a train injured you while riding as a passenger, if you were a pedestrian or driver the train injured, if you were injured while employed by the railroad company, or if you were the loved one of someone whom a train killed.

In some cases, injuries may be as minor as cuts, scrapes, and bruises. However, because of the size and weight of a train, many resulting injuries have been more severe.

Some injuries include:

• Strains, sprains, pulled and torn muscles, and other soft tissue injuries;
• Simple and compound fractures;
• Head, neck, and shoulder injuries;
• Back and spinal cord injuries;
• Paralysis;
• Traumatic brain injuries;
• Internal injuries; and
• Death.

According to a recent study by the Office of Safety Analysis in the Federal Railroad Association, Texas has seen 45 train accidents, in the span of a two-month period.

In some cases, the negligence of the train operator or other employees on the train could cause an accident. In other cases, improper maintenance, defective parts, poorly maintained track, obstructed roadways from an improperly parked train, and derailments could cause a train to injure or kill someone. Additionally, trains could crash into one another or into vehicles and pedestrians on or near the tracks if a switch is not working properly or, in manual systems, if the person running the switches does not activate the switch properly. A malfunction involving a switch can cause a derailment of the trains entirely.

According to the Federal Railroad Association’s Office of Safety Standards, a recent study indicated that the following factors caused Texas train accidents during a two-month period:

• Excessive side bearing clearance;
• Broken rims;
• Worn flanges;
• Inattentiveness and misjudgments of drivers on highways;
• Drivers ignoring train crossing warnings;
• Human error in train yards, including switches not appropriately aligned and switches not properly locked;
• Train cars not loaded correctly;
• Something on the track;
• “Harmonic rock off;”
• Broken auto hump retarders;
• Radio-controlled switches not working properly; and
• Track issues, such as a soft roadbed, unleveled track joints, loose or broken rail spikes, and worn or broken switch points.

The damages you might recover after a train accident depends on the circumstances of the accident. If you purposely tried to beat a train across a crossing, it is doubtful that the railroad company will share in that liability.

However, if the negligence of a train operator or other employee caused your injuries, or the death of a loved one, some of the damages you might recover could include economic and non-economic damages such as:

• Past and future medical expenses;
• Past and future lost wages;
• Compensation for medical equipment, such as ambulatory aids and other equipment;
• Funeral and burial expenses;
• Pain and suffering;
• Emotional distress;
• Loss of companionship;
• Loss of consortium;
• Loss of use of a body part;
• Loss of use of a bodily function;
• Inconvenience;
• Disfigurement; and
• The loss of a limb.

Most non-economic damages, such as pain and suffering and inconvenience, could only be made available if you have long-term disabilities the accident caused. While insurance companies may have their own definition for long-term disability, the Social Security Administration defines long-term disabilities as a disability that doctors expect to last for at least 12 months or a disability that will result in death.

If a train accident injured you, contact an experienced San Antonio train accident attorney at George Salinas Injury Lawyers for a free consultation to discuss the details of your matter.