Railroad Must Produce Event Recorder Data For Longer Time Period Before Derailment
Following last year’s crude oil train derailment in West Virginia, the railroad brought suit against the company responsible for maintaining the track. The railroad alleged that the derailment was caused by the defendant company removing anchors from the track in anticipation of replacing the existing rail (the replacement allegedly was supposed to take place the same day as the accident, but the anchors were still missing when the train passed).
In discovery, the railroad produced the event recorder data for only the last ten minutes (1.5 miles) leading up to the derailment. The defendant company, however, sought the event recorder data for the full 12-mile trip on this section of the track. Yesterday, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia agreed that the railroad had to produce the full event recorder data. The court explained that the railroad’s experts had reviewed the full data and that there was no showing that producing the data would be disproportionate to the needs of the case or that it was unduly burdensome to produce it.
