Jury Awards $3 Million For Worker's Soft-Tissue Injury

PHILADELPHIA - After a four-day trial, a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury delivered a $3 million verdict yesterday to a railroad worker who sustained soft-tissue injuries when he fell from a locomotive's ladder, according to The Legal Intelligencer.

"If there ever was a textbook case of negligence, this was it," said the plaintiff's attorney, Robert S. Goggin III of Keller & Goggin P.C.

In 1997, Robert Nast of Pike County, then 47, was employed as a mechanic by New Jersey Transit Rail Operations Inc., at the transit company's rail yard in Raritan, N.J.

The yard was being resurfaced, which entailed removal and replacement of railroad ties and ballast, the rocky material on which the rails are set.

During the resurfacing process, the ballast removal left gullies alongside rail tracks that remained in operation.

The plaintiff was injured when, while performing maintenance chores at 3 a.m. in the unlighted rail yard, he stepped off a ladder on the side of a locomotive engine and tumbled five feet down a gully.

The theory of negligence was based on evidence that the transit company, which was aware of the hazards presented by the resurfacing project, failed to provide the plaintiff with a safe work place, Goggin said.

"They had notice of the unsafe condition," said Goggin. "A company foreman testified that he had received numerous complaints from workers and took those complaints to the engineering department of New Jersey Transit."

There was no response by the railway company to the workers' concerns, Goggin said.

"The workers even offered suggestions on how the resurfacing work could be made safer, none of which New Jersey Transit did anything about," he said.

It had been a common practice for mechanics to work at night without lights in the yard, Goggin said. "Following this, they put in four tower lights."

The new lighting was not excluded from evidence as a subsequent remedial measure because the lights were part of the resurfacing construction project, Goggin said.

The plaintiff suffered nerve-root irritation in his lower back that caused decreased muscle tone and function in his right foot. "He walks with a limp," Goggin said.

The defendant was represented at trial by Dorothy T. Daly of Swartz Campbell & Detweiler. "I've only had preliminary discussions with the client at this point, but it seems that a motion for remittitur or a new trial would be warranted in this case," Daly said.

The complaint was brought under the Federal Employee Liability Act, which was the plaintiff's only remedy, Goggin said. The federal statute allows state courts to assume jurisdiction. "New Jersey Transit trains run in Philadelphia," Goggin said.

The jury was apparently sympathetic that two of the plaintiff's four children were forced to leave college and work to help support the family when the plaintiff's injuries left him unable to work, Goggin said.

Under the federal act, the plaintiff was not entitled to worker's compensation benefits. His only financial benefits were about $30,000 in payments from his railroad disability and pension fund.