In Aaron v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation, d/b/a Amtrak, the Eighth Circuit Court agreed with LCBF that the District Court erred when it denied Amtrak’s motion for judgment as a matter of law.
Plaintiffs brought a wrongful death action on behalf of a passenger who was killed by another passenger in a random shooting on an Amtrak train. Plaintiffs alleged that Amtrak’s lack of security and failure to render immediate emergency medical care caused decedent’s death.
After a two-week trial, a jury awarded plaintiffs $158.8 million, including $150 million in punitive damages. Amtrak filed post-trial motions arguing insufficient evidence to establish negligence, and insufficient evidence to justify punitive damages based on a lack of intentional conduct. The district court denied Amtrak’s post-trial motions but reduced the verdict to $44 million. Both parties appealed.
On appeal, LCBF argued that Amtrak had no duty to prevent the criminal acts of third-parties when the crime is not foreseeable. LCBF also argued that evidence of a company hiring outside security or employing its own security or police cannot be relied on to establish “foreseeability.” The Eighth Circuit agreed and affirmed the principle that a plaintiff must first establish that the crime was foreseeable, based upon similar crimes at a specific location, to establish a duty of care. Absent a showing of foreseeability, there is no duty to protect an individual from the random criminal acts of unknown third-parties.
LCBF also argued that there was no evidence to establish Amtrak caused decedent’s death based on a failure to render emergency medical care on a moving train. At trial, no expert testified that Amtrak’s actions or inactions caused decedent’s death; plaintiffs’ experts merely testified that if Amtrak had taken immediate action, decedent may have had a 4-14% chance of survival. LCBF argued this evidence was insufficient to establish causation and the Eighth Circuit agreed, finding that the minimal evidence could not support a reasonable inference that the decedent would have survived but-for Amtrak’s conduct.
The Eighth Circuit determined that plaintiffs did not present sufficient evidence to establish any of their theories of negligence against Amtrak. The Court reversed the decision below and directed the District Court to enter judgment for Amtrak. The LCBF trial team was headed by Mark Landman and the LCBF appeal team was headed by Jerry Cuomo, Gerald Ford, and Abbey Luffey. LCBF was recognized nationally by ALM for their work on this appeal, here.