Rail Defect May Have Caused Train Derailment
The engine of a slow moving, 10-car freight train derailed in East Hartford, Connecticut. Allegedly a piece of track snapped causing the train accident when the engine derailed.
There were no reports of injuries in the Railroad Accident that happened at the rear of an auto glass repair business. However, the state Department of Environmental Protection was called because the engine contained diesel fuel that had to be siphoned out of the engine as a precaution against a possible spill.
Under the Corpus Juris Secundum, in certain circumstances, a railroad car or other equipment, such as the broken piece of track above, constitutes a "product" for strict liability purposes and can be the basis for a manufacturing defect claim; however such claims are strictly monitored or may be preempted by federal law.
A defect in the design of railroad equipment may give rise to liability for injuries or damage resulting from that defect, especially where safer alternatives to the design used are readily available. While alterations of a piece of equipment by the user do not relieve the manufacturer of liability, if the alterations are foreseeable the plaintiff bears the burden of showing that the equipment was defective and was not altered after leaving the control of the defendant.
So, in the situation above, it would have to be proven by a plaintiff against the railroad manufacturer that the piece of track was defective and that the defect, which could have been foreseen to cause problems and could easily have been altered, was directly responsible for the railway accident.
However, the manufacturer of railroad equipment is not an insurer responsible in damages whenever one of its products fails. In addition, defects in specially ordered equipment, not launched into the stream of commerce by the manufacturer, do not give rise to strict liability.
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