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Webb v. CSX Transportation6/20/2005
Opinion
Heard December 1, 2004
AFFIRMED IN PART; REVERSED IN PART
This is a railroad crossing case. Appellant/ respondent (CSX) appeals a jury verdict awarding respondent/appellant (Plaintiff) $3 million actual damages in his wrongful death action; $250,000 actual damages in the survival action; and $875,000 punitive damages. Plaintiff appeals an order finding CSX violated S.C. Code Ann. § 58-17-3420 (1976) but declining to award him damages for this breach. We affirm the order appealed by Plaintiff, but reverse the jury verdicts, and remand those claims for a new trial.
FACTS
In approximately 1912, a railroad line was constructed in the town of Pelzer. The line runs parallel to the Saluda River and crosses several existing roads. The railroad track effectively separates approximately twenty-one homes (the mill village) from the rest of Pelzer. The area is hilly, and while the railroad created grade crossings at Jordan and Stephens Streets, it made a cut under Green Street and built a wooden bridge to carry road traffic over the railway. The Green Street Bridge was the primary route for persons traveling to and from the mill village.
In July 1998, arsonists damaged the Green Street Bridge rendering it unusable by vehicles. The Jordan Street Crossing became the primary ingress/egress point. Jordan Street is horseshoe-shaped, and the crossing is located in the curve of the horseshoe. The crossing is at the bottom of a hill, so that vehicles approaching it from either direction are traveling downhill. The Jordan Street Crossing is "passive," that is, controlled only by a cross-buck.
The railroad line crossing Jordan Street is used only to deliver coal to a Duke Power steam plant; there are approximately five trains a week, and the speed limit for the trains is twenty-five miles per hour. There was evidence that approximately 465 to 495 vehicles used the Jordan Street Crossing on a weekday, with less vehicular traffic on weekends.
On the evening of June 17, 2000, at approximately 6:00 p.m., Doris Medlin and her sister-in-law, Susan Webb (Plaintiff's decedent), were returning to their homes in the mill village after grocery shopping. As Mrs. Medlin drove her car across the tracks, the car was struck by a CSX train returning from the power plant after dropping off loaded coal cars. The train consisted of two engines hooked together, and was traveling about twenty-five miles per hour. Mrs. Medlin survived the wreck; Mrs. Webb, the front seat passenger, died about two months later from injuries sustained in the accident.
We address Plaintiff's appeal first.
PLAINTIFF'S APPEAL
Whether the trial judge erred in finding CSX's failure to repair the Green Street Bridge was not the proximate cause of this accident?
ANALYSIS
Plaintiff contends that S.C. Code Ann. § 58-17-3420 imposes a legal obligation on CSX to repair the Green Street Bridge, and that its failure to do so entitles Plaintiff to damages pursuant to S.C. Code Ann. § 58-17-3980 (1976). The circuit court agreed 3420 required CSX to repair the bridge, but held that damages were awardable under 3980 only if the failure to repair were a proximate cause of Plaintiff's decedent's death. Finding the bridge repair issue a remote rather than efficient cause of the accident, the court declined to award damages. Plaintiff argues this was error. We disagree.
Section 58-17-3420, entitled "Construction and maintenance of bridges," is part of the General Railroad Law, and provides:
Every railroad corporation shall, at its own expense, construct, and afterwards main
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