Friday, February 17, 2006

UTA off the hook for bicycle accident on railroad tracks

Utah Transit Authority v. Salt Lake City So. R.R. Co., Inc

Some guy crashed his bicycle on a section of railroad track near 17th south and 200 west. I believe the section is now predominately a Trax line. But at the time (1998), UTA owned it but was not yet using it for Trax service. Southern Railroad had a limited easement for freight rail service and was responsible for maintaining the track.

The bicyclist sued pretty much everybody he could think of, including UTA and Southern. UTA asked Southern to indemnify it under the terms of their Administration and Coordination Agreement. Southern refused, claiming that contract only required maintenance for freight service, not bicycle safety.

The court of appeals disagreed. If held that the language of the contract unambiguously put the duty to maintain the safety of the track on Southern. It thus affirmed the trial court's award of $238,190.69 to UTA for indemnification for litigation costs.

I wonder, what was the $.69 for? Paper clips?

1 Comments:

Blogger Bradley Ross said...

I read of a restaurant manager that always told his customers they would be seated in 7 minutes, rather than saying 5-10 minutes. It made it sound like he knew exactly what he was talking about. Maybe the $0.69 is the same psychology trick.

4:49 PM  

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