Hartford Courant
Dave Altimari
Kevin Murphy was hustling to catch his early morning commuter train at the Noroton Heights station in March 2013 when he slipped on a patch of ice and fell onto the tracks and into the path of a Metro-North train traveling 79 miles per hour.
He was killed instantly.
On Monday, the state Supreme Court heard arguments concerning a lawsuit filed by Jamie Murphy, Kevin’s wife, against Metro-North claiming that the train should not have been traveling on the track closest to the platform and that if it had been on one of the inner tracks he’d be alive today.
The case before the state’s highest court comes down to one question—can someone sue Metro-North in state court over an issue that doesn’t appear to be covered by the Federal Rail Safety Act (FRSA)?
Typically, lawsuits against Metro-North involving fatal crashes end up in federal court, But in this case, attorneys for Jamie Murphy, James Healey and Joel Faxon, filed a state wrongful death claim. The lawsuit alleged that Metro-North was negligent in routing a “through train” that was not scheduled to stop at Noroton Heights onto a track adjacent to the train platform rather than onto another track away from the platform.
Two other defendants, the town of Darien and Wilton Enterprises, which runs a concession stand at the platform where Murphy slipped, both settled the case. Superior Court Judge Gary Kamp then issued a summary judgement in favor of Metro-North.
Kamp ruled that the plaintiff’s claim was preempted by the FRSA and therefore there was no relief available in state court.
But Healey argued that the superior court judge erred because there is nothing in the FRSA that specifically covers track selection nor the railroad’s responsibility when it comes to keeping “through trains” off the track closest to the platform where commuters are standing.
“This has to do with running a through train on an exterior track,” Healey argued. “This is not about how fast a train was going but the track that it was on. No one can point to any federal regulations that apply and absent that then the state law should apply.”
Healey argued that since the federal regulations don’t discuss track-selection regulations, the state has the right to implement its own regulations on that issue and that the rail company can be held liable in a state court.
The Noroton Heights section has four tracks. Trains are allowed to travel up to 80 miles per hour on each. Healey said Metro-North officials should have switched the train that wasn’t stopping in Noroton Heights to an outer track to avoid commuters.
The train that struck Murphy wasn’t speeding and the conductor did apply the emergency brake. The Metro-North investigation found that the conductor did nothing wrong.
Metro-North’s attorney, Robert Hickey, said the plaintiff’s case fails because the train was operating on a properly assigned track under the federal regulations and that what track it was on that day “wasn’t unreasonable.” Hickey also said that the true complaint is about the speed of the train and that it was going under the speed limit at the time of the crash.
But the justices refuted Hickley’s argument about speed.
“The claim really has nothing to do with the speed of the train but ‘is it inherently dangerous to have a through train on an exterior track?’ ” Justice Richard Palmer said.