Kin of man in fatal train wreck sues
The father of a man injured when a trash truck was struck by a train full of Republican pols has filed a $10 million lawsuit.
The suit alleges the crossing signal had not been properly maintained at the time of the fatal collision, which took place on Jan 31 in Virginia.
Christopher Foley was killed and Dennis Eddy, another passenger in the truck, suffered serious injuries. Dana Naylor, the driver of the truck, was indicted for involuntary manslaughter and being under the influence.
Eddy’s father names CSX Transportation, which owns the track, and Buckingham Branch Railroad, which operates it, in the lawsuit filed Friday.
Witnesses said the truck entered the crossing in Crozet, near Charlottesville, after the safety gates had come down. People who live nearby have said the gates were known to malfunction.
“Despite the long history of crossing signal malfunctions, neither BB nor CSX took the necessary steps to remedy or protect the Lanetown Crossing,” read the lawsuit obtained by NBC 29.
The lawsuit alleges that the crossing gate came down “either on top of the truck’s refuse body or behind the body.”
The defendants “ignored” the “unsafe” signal system for two years, according to the lawsuit, which resulted in “numerous activation failures, false activations and partial activations” at the crossing.
The chartered train that collided with the truck was carrying dozens of GOP lawmakers to a Repuplican policy retreat in West Virginia.