Train Law Blog : Railroad Injury Lawyer & Attorney : Cahill Goetsch & Perry Law Firm : Railway Worker Injuries & Accidents

 A leading U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has clarified when rail workers can recover damages for outrageous conduct by their employer railroad. Building on two cases that I handled (Metro North Railroad v. Buckley in the U.S. Supreme Court and Higgins v. Metro North Railroad in the Second Circuit), the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has declared that a worker can recover for a purely emotional injury (involving no physical impact) only if he or she was within a "zone of danger of physical impact."

 Goodrich v. LIRR involved an electrician who sought to recover under the Federal Employers Liability Act (FELA) for his emotional distress after a fellow worker intentionally posted his HIV positive status on a company bulletin board. The Circuit Court ruled that under the FELA the electrician could not recover because there was no physical impact or threat of physical impact involved. So no matter how outrageous the conduct, unless there is some physical impact or imminent threat of serious physical impact, under the FELA a railroad worker has no recovery for emotional distress.

But that is not the case if the worker is protected by the Federal Rail Safety Act. Under the FRSA, physical impact is not necessary for the recovery of emotional distress damages, and a worker can recover for any emotional distress resulting from a railroad's violation of his FRSA rights. And punitive damages up to $250,000 also are recoverable under the FRSA for outrageous conduct by the railroad.

So, even if a worker has no claim under the FELA for emotional distress, he still may be able to recover emotional distress damages under the FRSA. 

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While we await the Administrative Review Board's official burial notice for the railroads' bogus "election of remedies" argument, here is another nail in the coffin of that dead Federal Rail Safety Act defense: Thompson v. Norfolk Southern Railway Corp., where yet another Administrative Law Judge explains why "the FRSA does not prevent an individual who has appealed discipline pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement from pursuing a complaint under the FRSA." If anybody at the ARB is listening, hasn't this wake gone on long enough? Time to lay this issue to rest once and for all.

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As Yogi Berra would say, "It's starting to get late early out there" for the Norfolk Southern Railway. OSHA has blown the whistle on NS's campaign of retaliation against injured workers, and the Federal Rail Safety Act awards and punitive damages just keep piling up.

In the latest, Nelson v. Norfolk Southern Railway, OSHA's investigation confirmed that employees "are reluctant to report an injury and/or illness, fearing that they will be targeted and eventually terminated from employment." Which explains how NS has kept its injury rates low enough to receive "the prestigious E.H. Harriman Rail Safety Gold Medal Award for 22 consecutive years." Only in the railroad industry could managers receive a safety medal for suppressing the reporting of injuries.

OSHA notes the "chilling effect" of NS's "reckless disregard for the law" and points to how NS "has been cited previously by the Federal Railroad Administration for harassing and intimidating employees from reporting injuries" in violation of FRA regulations. OSHA concludes that NS's "disregard for Complainant's rights under FRSA warrants punitive damages" in the amount of $75,000, plus another $20,000 for emotional distress and $26,000 in attorney fees.

When it comes to railroads like the NS, all that glitters is not gold.

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Once again, OSHA has slammed Metro North Railroad with punitive damages for disregarding the Federal Rail Safety Act rights of its employees. This time it is for using prior injuries to deny promotions, and the resulting punitive damage award is $125,000.

Like many railroads, Metro North has a policy and practice of considering an employee's history of reporting injuries when evaluating that employee for a promotion. Here, ironworker Bill Ordner passed all the hurdles for a locomotive engineer job, but then, after the final background check phase, was handed a letter denying him the promotion with no explanation. He had reported injuries within the prior three years, and when Metro North refused to provide OSHA's Whistleblower Office with the information on which the denial was based, OSHA drew a negative inference against Metro North and concluded that Ordner's reporting of injuries was a contributing factor in Metro North's denial of the promotion.

Here are OSHA's words of warning to railroads nationwide:

Metro North automatically assigns points to an employee's personnel record, thereby subjecting the employee to other adverse consequences such as disqualification for promotion or craft transfer, solely for lawfully reporting a work-related injury. Metro North's enforcement of this policy, to the extent that it punishes employees for reporting work-related injuries, on its face violates FRSA. Such practices produce a chilling effect on reporting injuries in the workplace, jeopardizing employee safety. Furthermore, Metro North's refusal to provide OSHA with certain documents requested during this investigation is consistent with its conduct in past investigations. Metro North's pattern of refusal to provide OSHA with requested information during FRSA investigations demonstrates willful disregard for the law and the rights of its employees.

OSHA's make whole remedies include: ordering the Railroad to promote Ordner to the position of locomotive engineer with a seniority date of November 24, 2008 and full back pay; $125,000 in punitive damages; another $15,000 in emotional distress and attorney's fees; and the posting of the FRSA Notice to Employees in all 120 stations on the Railroad.

When will railroads learn that the FRSA has made the reporting of injuries a neutral, penalty-free event? For the full text of the Merit Finding, click here.

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Another railroad has been hit with Federal Rail Safety Act punitive damages for disciplining injured employees based on vague safety rules. This time it's the Burlington Northern Railroad, who charged a conductor with being "careless of the safety of yourself and others" after he reported an injury. At the disciplinary trial, the charging officer "testified that all injuries are preventable and because the conductor reported a work-injury, he must have violated that rule." Based on such Alice In Wonderland logic, the Railroad imposed a 30 day record suspension with a one year probation. But OSHA Whistleblower's Office was not impressed with such circular logic, and imposed an award of $75,000 in punitive damages and $25,000 for emotional distress. For the full text of the FRSA Award, click here.

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It's official. Thanks to the Federal Rail Safety Act, railroads can no longer impose discipline based on vague safety rules that are triggered only when a worker reports an injury.

Every railroad has so-called "safety" rules stating employees must "be alert and attentive" and "take care to prevent injury to themselves" and "when in doubt take the safe course." Any worker who reports an injury automatically is in violation of such rules, whose only function is to provide a basis to discipline workers who report injuries. In effect, such rules prohibit employees from being injured, and then are used as a bogus basis to discipline workers who report an injury.

Those days are over. In a case where a conductor slipped on ice and was suspended for ten days after the railroad found he "was not alert" and "caused an injury to himself" and "did not take the safe course," OSHA's Whistleblower Office slapped the railroad with $100,000 in FRSA punitive damages, plus $25,000 for emotional distress. From now on, railroads that uses such vague "safety" rules to discipline injured employees are just asking to get hit with FRSA punitive damages. For the full text of the FRSA Award, click here.

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Here's the latest judicial decision rejecting the bogus "election of remedies" defense railroads continue to raise in Federal Rail Safety Act cases. This one is especially sweet in that it allows a worker to continue her frontal attack against Norfolk Southern Railway's notorious practice of firing employees who report on duty injuries.

The facts are familiar to anyone who deals with Norfolk Southern. Latonya Milton reported an injury five days after the incident that caused the injury, and as usual NS fired her for filing an "untimely" injury report and for making "false and conflicting statements" regarding the reporting of her injury. She appealed the termination through her collective bargaining agreement, and also filed a FRSA complaint with OSHA's Whistleblower Office. NS argued that her CBA appeal was an "election of remedies" that precluded her from pursuing a FRSA claim.

Judge Malamphy rejected that argument, ruling Milton "is not precluded from appealing her termination pursuant to her collective bargaining agreement while simultaneously litigating this claim under the FRSA." NS asked for an immediate reconsideration, but to no avail. The Judge again concluded: "I find that the FRSA does not prevent an individual who has filed a grievance pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement from pursuing a complaint under the FRSA." How many times do judges have to rule before the railroads accept reality? For the complete text of both decisions, click here.

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Are you fed up with rail managers who habitually ignore safety rules and regulations, and then blame the workers who get hurt as a result of management's unsafe practices? Now you can do something about it. Here's how to disqualify such managers from ever working in the railroad industry again.

There is a little known Federal Rail Administration regulation that gives the FRA the power to permanently disqualify unsafe rail managers from railroad work. Entitled "Disqualification Procedures," it sets forth how the FRA bans managers and supervisors "who have demonstrated their unfitness to perform safety-sensitive functions by violating any rule, regulation, order, or standard prescribed by the FRA." It applies to all managers involved in a railroad's operations, track, equipment, or training departments.

The process begins when information about such a manager comes to the FRA's attention (more on that below). The FRA then issues a Notice of Proposed Disqualification charging the manager with violating one or more of the FRA's rules, regulations, or standards. The manager is then subjected to a public hearing before an administrative law judge where the FRA's Chief Counsel presents witnesses and documents proving the facts alleged in the Notice of Disqualification. If the charges are sustained, the judge then issues an order disqualifying the manager from any safety sensitive job on any railroad. The only appeal is to the FRA Administrator, whose decision is final and not subject to any further review. Thereafter any railroad that fails to inform prospective employers of a manager's disqualification or who actually hires a disqualified manager must pay penalties of up to $11,000 per day or $4 million per year.

Here's where you come in. In order for this process to work, the FRA needs to be provided with the information confirming a manager's violation of a safety rule or regulation. That means providing documents and the names of witnesses able to verify the manager's violation. So if you want to turn the tables on managers who ignore safety while blaming the workers who get hurt as a result, send a confidential email to charlie@trainlaw.com (or the designated legal counsel of your choice) explaining the manager's violation and listing the witnesses and documents that will confirm the violation. We will evaluate whether that information is strong enough for the FRA to pull the trigger on the unsafe manager.

And remember, if you do end up providing that information to the FRA, the Federal Rail Safety Act protects you from any retaliation by your employer railroad! So you have nothing to fear, and your co-workers and the FRA will thank you for it.

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Talk about timing. I was on trial in federal court last week in a FELA injury case. The Railroad, no doubt hoping the U.S. Supreme Court would eliminate the FELA's long standing "even to the slightest degree" causation standard and replace it with the less favorable "proximate cause," had made a low ball offer and asked the Judge to charge the jury on the proximate cause standard. At 10:35 am on Thursday morning the Judge was ready to read his charge, but first turned to me and asked, "Mr. Goetsch, any word on the McBride Supreme Court decision?" I pulled out my IPhone and saw that only minutes before the Supreme Court had handed down the McBride decision upholding the FELA's "even to the slightest degree" standard. I replied, "Judge, the FELA remains intact. No reason to change the usual charge." The jury was charged accordingly, and later returned a verdict five times more than the Railroad's offer.

The purpose of the FELA is to promote safe railroad operations by allowing negligently injured workers to recover full jury damages. That's why Teddy Roosevelt pushed the FELA through Congress 103 years ago, to give the railroads an economic incentive to be safe. Last week the future of the FELA hung in the balance, but now we can thank the Supreme Court for upholding the FELA and refusing to cripple what is the original rail safety law. Somewhere, Teddy Roosevelt is smiling a big toothy grin. For the full decision in CSX Transportation Inc. v. McBride, click here.

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The Union Pacific Railroad is about to learn the hard way that arrogance is not a defense to the Federal Rail Safety Act.

The FRSA gives OSHA the power to order the "preliminary reinstatement" of an employee with full back pay. The reinstatement goes into immediate effect even if the railroad objects to OSHA's findings. And even if the railroad ultimately overturns OSHA's award, the railroad can never recover the reinstatement wages it paid.

Railroads mess with the power of preliminary reinstatement at their peril. Case in point. After UP machinist Brian Petersen reported an injury, he was suspended, dismissed, and then returned to service subject to instant termination at the whim of any manager. Sure enough, four days after returning to work under that draconian condition, a manager saw him and two other machinists standing on Timken Bearings in order to read the serial numbers off of traction motors. Petersen was immediately sent home and dismissed in all capacities. Nothing happened to the two machinist who were with him doing the same thing.

Petersen suffered emotional and financial harm due to UP's decision to terminate him. He went into debt and had to move his wife and children to find other work. The stress was so intense he ended up in the emergency room with what appeared to be a heart attack. OSHA found UP's disparate treatment of Petersen to be in outrageous violation of the FRSA, and ordered $214,000 in make whole remedies, including: immediate reinstatement; $105,000 in back pay; $17,000 for emotional distress and moving expenses; $75,000 in punitive damages; and $17,000 in attorney's fees. For the full decision, click here.

So how did UP respond? In an insolent affront to the authority of OSHA, UP emailed OSHA stating that it "will not implement the preliminary order for reinstatement." Big mistake. Despite its arrogance, UP is no match for the power of the United States government. The United States Attorney will promptly enforce OSHA's reinstatement order in United States District Court, and all UP will end up accomplishing is to confirm its "reckless disregard" for the FRSA rights of its employees, thus setting the stage for even greater FRSA punitive damage awards in the future.

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OSHA has blown the whistle on Norfolk Southern Railway Company's practice of disciplining injured workers based on bogus "falsification" charges. From now on, Norfolk Southern's "falsification" strategy will cost it dearly.

In order to discourage the reporting of injuries, Norfolk Southern routinely charges injured employees with "falsifying" the injury. That is what happened to Conductor Jeff Thompson. After he reported an injury, he was accused of falsifying his symptoms and was suspended for six weeks. A RLA arbitrator ordered Norfolk Southern to pay all of his back wages, and now OSHA is ordering the Railroad to pay $15,000 for his emotional distress and another $15,000 in attorney fees.

This Award is noteworthy because (1) it lays the groundwork for punitive damages against Norfolk Southern for such egregious conduct, and (2) it confirms that a RLA award of back wages does not prevent OSHA from ordering the full spectrum of Federal Rail Safety Act economic and equitable remedies. For the full text of the Award, click here.

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The Federal Employers Liability Act is the law that protects rail workers who are injured or killed on the job. The most important FELA case to reach the United States Supreme Court in the last 50 years was argued this morning. At stake is whether the FELA's long recognized standard of relaxed causation---namely, that a railroad is liable for an employee's injury or death if it "results in whole or part, even to the slightest degree," from the negligence of the railroad---was going to be overturned and replaced with a higher hurdle more difficult for employees to clear.

Arguing on behalf of all railroad employees was David C. Frederick, a veteran Supreme Court advocate who did an excellent job explaining why the relaxed standard must remain in place. If you have never been to a Supreme Court oral argument, the transcript of this morning's argument is well worth reading to get a flavor of how our nation's highest court deals with issues that affect the entire country. For the transcript of CSX Transp., Inc. v. McBride, click here. A decision will be handed down by June, so stay tuned.

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Here is a classic example of how the Federal Rail Safety Act is correcting rail management's reflexive "blame the injured worker" mentality. The Railroad failed to provide the proper tool to do the task in question. So the worker used whatever was at hand to complete the task, just as many other workers had done with management's blessing and without being disciplined. But this time the worker was injured. So, instead of disciplining the managers who failed to provide the proper tool, the Railroad disciplined the worker for using "an improper tool."

Under the FRSA, this is an invitation to be slapped with punitive damages, and OSHA has done just that. Even though the worker only lost one day's pay, BNSF now must pay him $75,000 in punitive damages and $15,000 for emotional distress, plus attorney's fees, for a total of $95,096.  The FRSA has made retaliation against injured workers an indulgence that will cost railroads dearly. For the complete text of OSHA's BNSF Award, click here.

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The act of filing a Federal Rail Safety Act complaint with OSHA is itself a protected activity that cannot in any way be used against the employee. But co-workers are protected as well. Any co-worker who talks to an OSHA Whistleblower investigator or who cooperates with the OSHA FRSA investigation gains protection going forward from any retaliation by the Railroad. So any fellow worker who provides information to an FRSA investigator dons the same suit of protective armor against retaliation and wields the same shield and sword to strike back against retaliatory managers. In some circumstances, union reps may be able to leverage such FRSA protection to push back against disciplinary charges. The citation for the FRSA subsection providing such protection is 49 USC 20109(a)(3).

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Case law is beginning to clarify punitive damages under the Federal Rail Safety Act. Such damages are based on a railroad's callous indifference toward the FRSA rights of its employees. Here is some conduct justifying the imposition of FRSA punitive damages:

• discouraging employees from filing injury reports or raising safety concerns
• targeting for closer scrutiny employees who report injuries or raise safety concerns
• blaming an injured employee without addressing the underlying systemic causes of the particular injury
• disciplining employees who report injuries without disciplining the managers who contributed to the circumstances that made the injury possible
• attempting to influence employee medical care or otherwise interfering with medical treatment
• disciplining employees who follow the orders or treatment plans of their treating doctors
• tying compensation of supervisors or managers to injury statistics or goals
• failing to have a HR manager or attorney review disciplinary actions to assure compliance with the FRSA

The leading FRSA punitive damages case to date is Anderson v. Amtrak. The Judge there discussed this type of conduct and awarded $100,000 in punitive damages, noting "At this point, Amtrak is on clear notice that these practices exist; any continuing failure to remedy them could amount to further and additional conscious disregard of its obligations." That Judge recently denied Amtrak's Motion For Reconsideration, noting:

Amtrak neglects that part of the reason for punitive damages is to punish those who act in conscious disregard of an employee's federally protected rights. As to the deterrent effect of punitive damages, Amtrak . . . has offered nothing to show that its culture has changed, that employees no longer feel deterred from reporting injuries, and that managers responding to employees' injury reports now respect those employees' federally protected rights.

Haunting words indeed for railroads nationwide. Managers ignore them at their peril. For the full text of both decisions, go to the Punitive Damages section of FRSA Library.

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Strange as it sounds, a railroad manager can have a valid reason for taking disciplinary action against an employee and still be in violation of the FRSA. How? Because the employee's protected activity in reporting an injury,raising a safety concern, or following a treating doctor's orders was a "contributing factor" to the action.

The FRSA requires that an employee prove his or her protected activity was a "contributing factor" to the adverse discipline or discrimination.  A contributing factor is any factor which alone or in combination with other factors tends to affect in any way the outcome of the decision.  Here is OSHA's explanation in the FRSA regulations:

In proving that protected activity [such as reporting an injury, raising a safety concern, or following a treating doctor's orders] was a contributing factor in the adverse action, an employee need not necessarily prove that the railroad's articulated reason was a pretext in order to prevail, because an employee alternatively can prevail by showing that the railroad's reason, while true, is only one of the reasons for its conduct, and that another reason was the employee's protected activity.

29 CFR Part 1982.  What does that mean in plain English?  A railroad can have a valid reason for firing an employee and still violate the FRSA if the discipline also is based in part on the employee's protected activity of raising a safety concern, reporting an injury, or following a treating doctor's orders.

So here's the question: if the employee had not engaged in the protected activity, would the discipline still have occurred? If the answer is no, then the employee's protected activity is a contributing factor and the railroad is in violation of the FRSA even if it can articulate another reason for the discipline.

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OSHA's Whistleblower Office will never approve a Federal Rail Safety Act settlement that includes confidentiality. Why? Because the FRSA is supposed to remedy the chilling effects of retaliatory actions, not lock them in. And in the railroad grapevine, no retaliatory action goes unnoticed. When employees see a co-worker hammered after raising safety, injury, or fraud concerns, it exercises a profound chilling effect on their willingness to do the same. The only way to remedy that chilling effect is to publicly hold railroads accountable for their violations of the FRSA, which is why OSHA issues press releases announcing FRSA findings against railroads.

But for lawyers, insisting on or agreeing to confidentiality clauses in FRSA settlements invites charges of unethical conduct. Here's why.

Under Rule 3.4(f) of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, a railroad attorney cannot ethically propose a settlement agreement that prevents a FRSA complainant from giving relevant factual information to other railroad workers or OSHA. Here is a quote from the leading article on the subject:

Proposed settlement clauses that would expressly bar the plaintiff from voluntarily cooperating with parties, agencies, or lawyers who are suing or investigating the defendant clearly run afoul of Rule 3.4(f), even if they allow for disclosures in response to a subpoena. Equally important, blanket confidentiality clauses that bar any discussion of the underlying facts and make no exception for disclosures of relevant information to other litigants violate the rule as well.

Malone and Bauer, "Unethical Secret Settlements: Just Say No," Trial (Sept. 2010). Click here for a version of the Trial article, and click here for a more in-depth discussion by Prof. Jon Bauer in the Oregon Law Review. Given the FRSA's provision for punitive damages, it is especially important for OSHA's Whistleblower Office to have unfettered access to all information relevant to their FRSA investigations. Rail workers simply cannot be barred from sharing their FRSA complaint experiences with OSHA or with co-workers and their attorneys.

And if a FRSA complaint stems from a rail worker's work related injury, it would be a federal crime for a railroad attorney even to attempt to prevent a FRSA complainant from voluntarily furnishing information regarding his injury that is relevant to another worker's injury. Section 60 of the FELA makes it a federal crime for a railroad or its attorney to attempt to prohibit such sharing of information among co-workers. 45 USC 60.

Moreover, Rule 5.6(b) of the Model Rules prohibits lawyers from participating in any settlement agreement that restricts a lawyer's right to practice. Again, to quote Malone and Bauer's analysis:

settlements that prohibit a plaintiff lawyer from using any information obtained during the case have been found to violate the rule, because such a promise would interfere with the lawyer's ability to provide effective representation to others suing the same defendant.

So here's the message to rail labor attorneys representing FRSA complainants: other than the dollar amount of a settlement, just say no to confidentiality in FRSA cases. And here's the message to railroad attorneys defending FRSA cases: don't even think about asking for confidentiality, unless of course you enjoy being the subject of bar disciplinary committee proceedings.

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Railroads are losing their campaign to gut the Federal Rail Safety Act by claiming that the Railway Labor Act precludes rail workers from invoking FRSA protection. In a resounding well-reasoned decision, Administrative Law Judge Richard A. Morgan explains that Congress enacted the FRSA "to allow employees to attempt to vindicate their rights using multiple means" and that the FRSA "clearly dictates that an employee is not precluded from pursuing both his RLA appeal to arbitration and his FRSA whistleblower protection complaint." For the full text of Newman v. Union Railroad, click here (PDF).

So the RLA does not preempt the FRSA. Ever. The two statutes simply run on separate tracks. In the words of Judge Morgan, employees are "not precluded from appealing their RLA discipline pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement while simultaneously litigating against the railroad through the FRSA." Kudos to Attorney Daniel J. Cohen and his client Charles Newman for adding another nail to the coffin of rail managment's bogus "election of remedies" defense.  For more background on this issue, click here.

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Teddy Roosevelt would be proud. 102 years after he signed the original rail safety statute into law, the Federal Employers Liability Act is still doing its job: exposing the unsafe practices of railroads and holding railroads accountable for the employee injuries that result.

The sad truth is, rail managers habitually ignore their own responsibility for the unsafe conditions that injure workers and instead focus all blame on the victim. This has the noxious effect of leaving the root cause of injuries in place, thereby prolonging the risk and guaranteeing more employee injuries. But in the right hands, the FELA is a powerful weapon that can pierce the armor of rail management denial and expose the truth about unsafe work practices. The remarkable story of electrician Jim Deacon is a case in point (see below for news links)

One of the most horrifying dangers on any railroad is a high voltage electrical arc explosion. During an arc explosion metal melts into a superheated plasma that engulfs workers in a fireball hotter than surface of sun, and is usually caused by defective cable connections. To prevent arc explosions, railroads must routinely inspect electrical equipment to confirm all connections are secure.  And to completely eliminate the risk of arc explosions, railroads must deenergize the power before employees begin working on the equipment.

On October 30, 2006, electrical tester Jim Deacon was assigned to work inside a third rail sectionalizing switch box that was an arc explosion waiting to happen. Because Metro North had not inspected that box, Metro North did not know there was a positive 700 volt cable under a metal motor housing that was completely disconnected and touching the metal housing, thus electrifying it. When Jim took off his protective gloves in order to thread a narrow #6 negative wire (following the practice in the field), the negative wire happened to touch the improperly electrified metal motor housing, sparking an arc explosion fireball. Jim spent a week in the Burn Unit with second and third degree burns over 15% of his body. Over the next year he endured three surgeries with multiple skin grafts.

And what of Jim's Metro North managers? Instead of taking responsibility for causing the explosion by their unsafe practice of not inspecting and not deenergizing, Metro North blamed Jim for his injury and disciplined him for not wearing gloves at the moment of the explosion. And instead of preserving the crucial evidence, the managers destroyed the cable end and connector barrel involved in the explosion, and denied they had shot any videotape during their investigation. Fortunately an anonymous source mailed Jim a copy of the video shot by the top manager showing him personally ordering workers to reach inside the live box without protective gloves on, the very same act for which the manager disciplined Jim.

Jim returned to work in the Metro North Power Department for 17 months, but the ongoing unfair blame and unsafe working conditions took a severe toll on his psychological condition, to the point he was medically disqualified from working.

But the FELA finally forced the Railroad to admit the truth. After 3.5 years of blaming Jim, on the eve of trial Metro North admitted the explosion was caused by its negligence and that Jim did not contribute to his injuries in any way. This crucial vindication--plus the $1.1 million Metro North will pay Jim--would not have happened without the FELA.

So Teddy Roosevelt's rail safety law is indeed working as intended. For a two minute video regarding the arc explosion, go to the New Haven Register news site, where a copy of rail safety expert James Sottile's excellent Report detailing the failures of Metro North management is available as well.

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