A Minnesota judge awarded the families of four victims $4 million dollars from large corporation for engaging in a "staggering" patter of misconduct aimed at covering up its role in the deaths of four people whose car collided with the train. A jury had previously awarded the families $21.6 million and placed 90 percent of the blame for the accident on the corporation because a crossing gate was not working properly.
The judge found that the corporation lost or fabricated evidence, interfered with the families' investigation of the accident and "knowingly advanced lies, misleading facts and/or misrepresentation" in order to conceal the truth. The judge found that the company started destroying evidence within minutes of the accident. The company was accused of losing or destroying a computer disk that recorded the train's speed and other factors in the night of the collision, failing to disclose the awareness of previous signal problems at the crossing and destruction of records of work done near the crossing. Also two witnesses, neither of whom were experts or at the scene of the accident, were paid thousands of dollars by an attorney hired to help the corporation fight the wrongful-death cases.
If you are involved in a business lawsuit arising out of corporate misconduct, litigation abuse, or destruction of evidence contact my office in Rockville or Baltimore for a free case evaluation and initial consultation at 1-800-320-0080.
