The recent drumbeat of news about the reckless behavior and questionable oversight of the Metrolink engineer suspected of causing last year's Chatsworth rail disaster has reverberated painfully for Claudia Souser.
She followed media reports as federal investigators publicly questioned rail officials over two days of hearings in Washington earlier this month.
"As each disclosure came, you realized how much the safety of your family was compromised," said the mother of three, who lost her husband of nearly 30 years -- and the family's breadwinner -- when Metrolink 111 collided with a freight train six months ago.
That sort of sentiment, coupled with disturbing details about Metrolink operations and the circumstances surrounding the crash, is spilling into the court battle over who should compensate victims like Souser and her children and how much they are due.
Legal experts say findings that Metrolink engineer Robert M. Sanchez sent and received hundreds of on-duty cellphone text messages, allowed teenage rail fans into locomotive cabs, and may have failed to properly call and confirm crucial signals are likely to bolster damage claims expected to total hundreds of millions of dollars. Metrolink's own abrupt decision last week to topple two top managers accused of failing to adequately supervise Sanchez and other rail workers underscored safety problems, experts said.
"We're getting admissions right and left," said Georgene Vairo, a professor at Loyola Law School. "What the train engineer was doing appears to be grossly negligent."
The question now, she said, is: "Who's going to take the fall . . . knowing that money's going to get paid?"
Sanchez was text-messaging about the time he sailed through a red light and hit a Union Pacific freight train head-on, investigators have said. The engineer and 24 passengers were killed. More than 130 were injured and dozens hospitalized, some with serious internal damage.
Metrolink, a five-county, taxpayer-subsidized rail agency, and Connex Railroad, the private company hired to provide engineers and conductors on the commuter system, are suing each other. Each contends the other is required to pay its liability costs.
Recent disclosures could put both entities on the hook for losses that could reach -- or challenge and exceed -- a federal $200-million cap on compensation awards for rail accidents, according to liability law experts and victims' lawyers.
