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Price v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation11/24/2000
erator was justified in assuming the decedents' car would remain stopped at the crossing and that the duty to brake did not arise until the decedents' car drove onto the railroad tracks. A contrary ruling would impose a tort duty on train operators to brake a train any time the first in a line of cars at a crossing attempts to cross in front of the train. This is precisely the dangerous maneuver that Lawrence and Power seek to avoid.
Thus we conclude that a "specific local safety hazard" did not give rise to a duty to brake until decedents' car drove onto the track. Therefore, the trial court was correct to conclude that as a matter of law Plaintiffs cannot show that Amtrak's failure to brake caused the accident. The train was traveling at nearly 70 miles per hour just before the accident and the operator had only a few seconds to apply the brake before impact. Plaintiffs offer no evidence that the train could have slowed enough in a few seconds to avoid the accident. Plaintiffs thus have not preserved a genuine issue of material fact on causation, and Defendants are entitled to summary judgment on this issue.
D. Amtrak's Duty to Give Adequate Audible Warning
Plaintiffs argue Amtrak was not entitled to summary judgment on the issue of whether Amtrak provided an adequate audible warning as it approached the crossing.
Plaintiffs first argue that a question of fact remains as to whether Amtrak sounded its horn in a timely manner. Plaintiffs rely on testimony from witnesses in the first and third vehicles who testified that they either heard no train horn at all or heard the train horn only as the train occupied the 10600 South crossing and then again just before the collision. Plaintiffs do not dispute that the witnesses were in automobiles with the windows closed and music playing.
The train crew testified that they sounded the standard warning signal using the train's automatic sequencer. The Railroad Defendants additionally rely on data from an event recorder on the train that records such information as train speed, application of brakes, and horn activation. Data from the event recorder demonstrate unequivocally that the horn was activated in automatic mode for about forty seconds preceding the collision.
The Amtrak employee in California who downloaded the data from the recorder testified: "The recorded data reveals, as evidenced on this graph, that prior to application of the emergency brake, the train was traveling 68 mph and the horn was in the on position." Another Amtrak employee, Mark Sadler, testified in deposition, "my review of the speed tape indicated that it was a continuous thing from the previous crossing all the way through to this crossing here where it took place." Mike Brand, a road foreman for Southern Pacific at the time of the accident, testified that the data "shows the train's horn had been sounding (meaning it was in the on position) for approximately 40 seconds before application of the emergency brakes and it continued to sound thereafter until the train came to a complete stop." The Railroad Defendants argue Plaintiffs' negative evidence--i.e., that witnesses did not hear the train horn until just before the collision--cannot avoid summary judgment in light of the data from the train's event recorder.
Our supreme court has recognized that, although the credibility of negative evidence is generally a question for the jury, "in certain circumstances negative testimony will be insufficient to support a jury verdict." Curtis v. Harmon Elec., Inc., 575 P.2d 1044, 1047 (Utah 1978). This case presents such a circumstance.
The event recorder from the locomotive provides objecti
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