Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-14-03752/USCOURTS-ca8-14-03752-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Scott Haukereid
Appellant
National Railroad Passenger Corporation
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

___________________________

No. 14-3752

___________________________

Scott Haukereid, Individually and as Personal Representative and Administrator of

the Estate of Andrew Haukereid Jr, deceased

lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellant

v.

National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellee

____________

Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Eastern District of Arkansas - Jonesboro

____________

 Submitted: December 17, 2015

 Filed: March 8, 2016

____________

Before MURPHY, BENTON, and KELLY, Circuit Judges.

____________

MURPHY, Circuit Judge.

Scott Haukereid brought this action on behalf of himself and his father's estate,

alleging that the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) negligently

caused the wrongful death of his father Andrew Haukereid because the moving train

from which he fell had inadequate safety features and instructions for the crew. The

Appellate Case: 14-3752 Page: 1 Date Filed: 03/08/2016 Entry ID: 4375035 
district court granted summary judgment to Amtrak, and Haukereid appeals. We

1

affirm. 

I. 

Andrew Haukereid boarded one of Amtrak's Superliner II trains on May 19,

2012 in San Antonio, Texas destined for Chicago, Illinois to visit his sons. He was

79 years old and without any diagnosed mental, cognitive, or psychiatric conditions. 

A Superliner II train car has two manual side exit doors which are adjacent to

the restrooms, and each exit door has a window in its top half. The interior of each

exit door is marked with a sign warning passengers not to open the door or window. 

To open a side exit door on thistrain, a person must: (1) lift a safety latch in the upper

right corner of the door to an upright position; (2) push down the door handle; and

(3) pull the door inward. The door windows are also secured by a latch. To open a

window, an individual must lift the latch and pull the window inward. The windows

and side doors serve as emergency exits and are left unlocked even while the train is

moving. 

While the train was underway Andrew spoke on the phone several times with

his son Scott and occasionally asked crew members where the train was. At 3:39 pm

Andrew called Scott and said he was on an Amtrak train bound for Chicago. About

three hours later, he asked assistant conductor Louis Porch where the train was then. 

Around 8:55 pm, a few minutes after the crew had announced that the train had

arrived in Texarkana, Andrew asked Porch if the train was near Chicago. Porch told

him that it was still a long way to Chicago. Crew member Singrid Jackson reported

that when she had escorted a man fitting Andrew's description from the dining car to

The Honorable D. Price Marshall Jr., United States District Judge for the

1

Eastern District of Arkansas.

-2-

Appellate Case: 14-3752 Page: 2 Date Filed: 03/08/2016 Entry ID: 4375035 
the coach section, she observed that he had a confused look as if he did not know

where he was. 

At 10:17 pm Scott called Andrew again, and Andrew told him that he did not

think the train went to Chicago. Scott asked himto confirm the train's destination and

call him back. Andrew then walked to the dining car where Porch and conductor

John Davis were seated and told them, "I don't know where I am." Davis and Porch

replied that the train wasin Hope, Arkansas and asked Andrew where he was headed. 

When Andrew hesitated to answer, Davis checked his ticket and told him that he had

plenty of time for a good nap before they reached Chicago. At 10:33 pm Andrew

called Scott and told himthat he had spoken with an Amtrak employee and confirmed

the train was on its way to Chicago. When the train arrived in Little Rock, Arkansas

at 12:13 am on May 20, Andrew asked Porch "is this Chicago?" The conductor

responded that they were still twelve hours away from there. 

The last person who saw Andrew alive was a fellow passenger, Bobbie

Thomas. She testified that she noticed Andrew in the vestibule of his coach car

sometime between 2:30 and 3:00 am on May 20, the date he disappeared. According

to Thomas, Andrew was facing the right side door and the window on the left exit

door was open behind him. As Thomas went in and out of the restroom, she had to

walk around Andrew who did not acknowledge her. She described his behavior to

be "odd," as if "his mind wassomeplace else, not there with him." Andrew never did

arrive in Chicago. His body was found several weeks later about 20 feet east of the

railroad tracks in Clay County, Arkansas. No one witnessed him leave the train or

observed that the train doors were not properly functioning. Nor did any crew

member find any doors or windows open or unsecured. 

Since Amtrak was established on May 1, 1971, at least 76 passengers have

exited moving trains between stops. Of these 76 incidents, at least 29 of the missing

passengers appeared to have been confused or disoriented. One of Haukereid's

-3-

Appellate Case: 14-3752 Page: 3 Date Filed: 03/08/2016 Entry ID: 4375035 
experts, George A. Gavalla, opined that if Amtrak had informed its employees about

the number of accidents involving elderly passengers falling from its trains and

distributed information to its crew members on how to recognize signs of cognitive

impairment, Amtrak could have prevented Andrew fromfalling to his death. Gavalla

also testified that it is more probable than not that Andrew's accident would have

been prevented had Amtrak installed door status indicators to alert crew and

passengers whenever a dangerous exit door was opened, or had Amtrak installed an

interlocking system on its Superliner passenger cars to prevent exit doors from being

opened while a train was moving. 

While Andrew was still missing, Amtrak completed a missing person

investigation. Amtrak employees spoke with his family members and noted in a

preliminary investigation report that his family had been "worried about him since he

suffer[ed] from possible dementia although he had not been medically diagnosed."

Nevertheless, Andrew's sons and siblings testified that he had not had any cognitive

or mental impairments. His sons reported that they were unaware of any prior

instances of their father getting lost or becoming disoriented. Andrew's domestic

companion Carole Moreno told an Amtrak detective that he was starting to become

forgetful although he was generally alert and lucid. She feared Andrew was

developing memory loss and possible dementia. Amtrak employees who completed

a company police department missing person report for the incident listed Andrew's

"reason for leaving the train" as "Possible Dementia." 

During its investigation Amtrak also interviewed its employees. On May 24

conductor Davis reported that because Andrew had repeatedly asked where he was,

Davis had the impression that "[s]omething just wasn't quite right with [Andrew]." 

Several days later, Davis modified his statement to explain that he had not interacted

with Andrew long enough to know if there was anything wrong with him. According

to a neurological examination of Andrew on May 17, 2011, no mental, cognitive, or

psychiatric problem wasfound. Less than a month before Andrew boarded the train,

-4-

Appellate Case: 14-3752 Page: 4 Date Filed: 03/08/2016 Entry ID: 4375035 
an urgent care doctor who examined Andrew for jaw pain on April 20, 2012 had

observed similarly that Andrew's judgment and mood appeared normal and that he

had been "oriented to time, place and person." 

On April 2, 2013 Scott Haukereid brought this action against Amtrak, alleging

that it had negligently caused his father's death. The district court concluded that

although a reasonable jury could find that Amtrak breached its duty "by not passing

along information between crews about [Andrew's] confusion, not being more

vigilant about his circumstances, and not providing more training to crew members

about the exit dangersfaced by older travelers, especially at night," a jury would have

had to speculate as to how Andrew exited the train and as to the proximate cause of

his death. The district court granted summary judgment for Amtrak, and Haukereid

appeals.

II. 

We review a "district court's grant of summary judgment de novo, viewing the

facts in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party and giving that party the

benefit of all reasonable inferences that can be drawn from the record." Minn. ex rel.

N. Pac. Ctr., Inc. v. BNSF Ry. Co., 686 F.3d 567, 571 (8th Cir. 2012). Summary

judgment is appropriate if no genuine dispute exists "as to any material fact and the

movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). We "may

affirm the judgment on any basis supported by the record." Hohn v. BNSF Ry. Co.,

707 F.3d 995, 1000 (8th Cir. 2013). 

Scott Haukereid claims negligence and therefore bears the burden of showing

by a preponderance of the evidence that Andrew's injuries were caused by some

negligent act or omission of Amtrak. See Mangrum v. Pigue, 198 S.W.3d 496, 503

(Ark. 2004). The parties disagree as to whether the record contains sufficient

evidence for a jury to find that Amtrak proximately caused Andrew's death. Under

-5-

Appellate Case: 14-3752 Page: 5 Date Filed: 03/08/2016 Entry ID: 4375035 
Arkansas law, proximate cause is defined "as that which in a natural and continuous

sequence, unbroken by any efficient intervening cause, produces the injury, and

without which the result would not have occurred." Neal v. Sparks Reg'l Med. Ctr.,

422 S.W.3d 116, 120–21 (Ark. 2012). Moreover, a jury should "not be left to

speculation and conjecture in deciding between two equally probable possibilities."

St. Louis Sw. Ry. Co. v. Pennington, 553 S.W.2d 436, 441–42 (Ark. 1977). A party

also may not "draw one inference from another, or . . . indulge presumption upon

presumption to establish a fact." Glidewell v. Arkhola Sand & Gravel Co., 208

S.W.2d 4, 8 (Ark. 1948) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

When the facts are viewed in the light most favorable to Haukereid, the

circumstantial evidence in the record supportsthe inference that Andrew accidentally

fell out of a right side exit door on the train which he or someone else had opened. 

Hisfall waslikely accidental because the record evidence does not suggest either that

he intended to commit suicide or that a third party pushed him off the train. 

Moreover, his body was found on the right side of the train, and he was last seen

standing near an exit door. His height made it unlikely that he fell through an exit

door window which would have required him first to step up on something like a

stool, and the crew did not find anything like that near the windows.

While there is evidence in the record which could support Haukereid's theory

that Andrew accidentally fell out of the train's side exit door, the record does not

support his contention that Amtrak proximately caused Andrew's death. Haukereid

contends that Amtrak failed to equip the exit doors with door status indicators or an

interlocking door system. We dealt with a similar fact pattern in Donnelly v. Nat'l

R.R. Passenger Corp. (Amtrak), where no one witnessed a passenger exit an Amtrak

train and fall to her death. See 16 F.3d 941, 943 (8th Cir. 1994). We explained in

Donnelly that Amtrak's "failure to lock [or better secure] the door could not have

caused [the passenger] to exit the train" because, like the exit doors on Andrew's

train, in order to open an exit door required lifting its latch, then operating the door

-6-

Appellate Case: 14-3752 Page: 6 Date Filed: 03/08/2016 Entry ID: 4375035 
handle and pulling the door open. Id. at 945. Thus, "failure to lock the door could

not have opened the door." Id. Anyone lifting the latch on the exit door would have

served as an "efficient intervening cause" in the process. See Neal, 422 S.W.3d at

121. Haukereid attempts to distinguish the intervening cause argument in Donnelly

by arguing that such a cause must be intentional. Since Andrew was mentally infirm,

he should not be held accountable for opening the door. Haukereid's argument fails

for two reasons. First, a jury may not "indulge presumption upon presumption to

establish a fact" as would be required here since the parties dispute whether Andrew

was cognitively impaired at the time he was on the train and there was no evidence

showing who may have opened the exit doorfromwhich Andrew apparently fell. See

Glidewell, 208 S.W.2d at 8. Second, the proximate cause analysis in Donnelly was

not limited to the mental state of whoever lifted the door latch.

We conclude that Amtrak'sfailure to install doorstatusindicators to alert crew

that an exit door was open was not the cause of Andrew's death because they would

not have prevented his falling. See Donnelly, 16 F.3d at 945. Haukereid's train

safety expert Gavalla testified that door status indicators could have only given crew

brief notice that a door was open and would not necessarily have prevented Andrew

from exiting the train. Thus, even assuming that Amtrak had a duty to secure the exit

doors better, Haukereid did not show as a matter of law that the lack of additional

door safety features proximately caused Andrew to exit the train. 

Haukereid also has failed to present a genuine issue of fact showing that

Amtrak proximately caused Andrew's death by failing to instruct its crew adequately 

on hazards for confused passengers. Under Arkansas law, a common carrier is

"required to exercise towards its passengers the highest degree of care which a

prudent and cautious man would exercise and that which isreasonably consistent with

the mode of conveyance and practical operation of its trains." Capital Transp. Co. v.

Howard, 229 S.W.2d 998, 1000 (Ark. 1950). Although a common carrier owes a

heightened duty of care to its passengers, the record does not demonstrate that

-7-

Appellate Case: 14-3752 Page: 7 Date Filed: 03/08/2016 Entry ID: 4375035 
Amtrak would have or should have known that Haukereid was unfit to travel alone. 

Amtrak crew members interacted with Andrew on five occasions, once leading him

back to his seat and four times informing him where the train was and where it was

headed. Even viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Haukereid and

based on these limited interactions with Andrew, Amtrak crew could not have

understood that he was confused or somehow cognitively impaired. In fact,

Haukereid's own expert testified that Andrew's behavior was not concerning enough

to cause Amtrak crew to remove him from the train as they might when a passenger's

behavior is endangering him. Another expert offered by Haukereid admitted that

Andrew'sinteraction with conductor Davis would not have put Amtrak on notice that

he was at risk of exiting the train. Moreover, assistant conductor Porch testified that

many passengers who do not appear mentally impaired ask "where we're going or

where we are all the time." Assigning Andrew a personal monitor or hiring more

crew on overnight trains would exceed Amtrak'slegal duty as a common carrier since

it "is not an absolute insurer of the safety of its passengers" and adding employees to

watch a passenger not diagnosed with a cognitive impairment would not be

"reasonably consistent with the mode of conveyance and practical operation of

[Amtrak's] trains." See id.

Even if Amtrak had better trained its crew members about the exit dangers

faced by older passengers at night, Haukereid did not raise a disputed issue of fact as

to whether such training could have prevented Andrew from exiting the train. 

Haukereid claims that with adequate training Amtrak could have prevented Andrew's

death because he could have received a "Keep in Sight" check card on his seat,

requiring crew to monitor him regularly. According to assistant system general

trainmaster Michael Bonner, a seat check card does not obligate crew members to

restrain or keep track of a passenger. Instead, the card serves as a visible reminder

that the person in the seat may need assistance at some point during the trip. Such a

card would not have prevented Andrew from exiting the train by himself. Moreover,

Amtrak cannot force a passenger to accept an accommodation or special service that

-8-

Appellate Case: 14-3752 Page: 8 Date Filed: 03/08/2016 Entry ID: 4375035 
he or she has not requested. See Americans with Disabilities Act, 49 C.F.R.

§ 39.21(a). 

We conclude from this record that the district court did not err by granting

Amtrak summary judgment on Haukereid’s negligence claim. 

IV.

Haukereid also appeals two of the district court's discovery rulings which are

reviewed for gross abuse of discretion. See Level 3 Commc'n, LLC v. City of St.

Louis, Mo., 540 F.3d 794, 796 (8th Cir. 2008). Even if "a party can demonstrate a

gross abuse of discretion by the trial court . . . the complaining party must also

demonstrate prejudice." Gov't of Ghana v. ProEnergy Serv., LLC, 677 F.3d 340, 345

(8th Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Haukereid claims that the district court violated Federal Rule of Evidence 26

by denying his motions which would have compelled Amtrak to produce 11

investigation reports about passengers who had allegedly exited trains through

windows of exit doors and to produce a Rule 30(b)(6) witness to testify about "prior

incidents involving passengers exiting moving trains operated by Amtrak."

Haukereid contends that these reports and the testimony he sought are relevant to

prove that Andrew did not fall out of a window. Under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1), a

party "may obtain discovery regarding nonprivileged matter that is relevant to [its]

claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case." Here, the district court

did not grossly abuse its discretion by denying Haukereid's discovery requests

because the record already contained evidence about the unlikelihood of a window

exit. See Fed. R. Evid. 403. Moreover, Haukereid has not shown that if his discovery

requests had been granted, the evidence would have affected the issue of proximate

cause. See Gov't of Ghana, 677 F.3d at 345. 

-9-

Appellate Case: 14-3752 Page: 9 Date Filed: 03/08/2016 Entry ID: 4375035 
V.

For all these reasons the judgment of the district court is affirmed.

KELLY, Circuit Judge, dissenting.

This case asks us to make a very close call. I agree with the court that door

status indicators or further instruction of the Amtrak crew would not have prevented

Andrew Haukereid’s death. Therefore, Haukereid’s case rests on proving a breach

of Amtrak’s duty to better secure the exit doors, and a showing that the lack of

additional door safety features proximately caused Andrew to exit the train. 

The court holds that, as in Donnelly, the “failure to lock the door could not

have opened the door,” and that “[a]nyone lifting the latch on the exit door would

have served as an ‘efficient intervening cause’ in the process.” 16 F.3d at 945. The

court rejects Haukereid’s attempt to distinguish Donnelly first because it believesthat

a finding that Andrew was cognitively impaired along with the lack of evidence of

who opened the door requires the jury to “indulge presumption upon presumption”

to find that the opening of the door was unintentional. In my view, however, this case

is distinguishable from Donnelly on its facts. There was no evidence in Donnelly

that the decedent was confused, and no evidence to narrow down the possible ways

of exiting the train. Donnelly, 16 F.3d at 945. In fact, we stated there that “[t]he

circumstances surrounding [the decedent’s] exit from the train are wholly unknown

to the parties,” and that it was “equally probable that [the decedent] voluntarily exited

the train or that someone pushed [the decedent] out of the train.” Id. Other instances

where Amtrak has avoided liability are similarly sparse on facts. See, e.g., Harris v.

Nat’l Pass. R.R. Corp., 79 F. Supp. 2d 673 (E.D. Tex. 1999). 

Here, by contrast, the court has established that suicide, homicide, and a

window exit were not equally probable scenarios. I agree that “there is evidence in

-10-

Appellate Case: 14-3752 Page: 10 Date Filed: 03/08/2016 Entry ID: 4375035 
the record which could support Haukereid’s theory that Andrew accidentally fell out

of the train’s side exit door.” Ante at 6. Moreover, there is also evidence that

Haukereid was cognitively impaired, notjust a presumption. Haukereid’s interactions

with the crew—repeatedly asking themwhere he wasin a manner thatshowed he was

not fully aware of place or the passage of time—indicate confusion. There is

evidence in the record to show that he got up to use the restroom each night around

the time that he was seen in the train hallway. Passenger Bobbie Thomas described

Andrew’s behavior as odd and felt his mind was elsewhere. Andrew’s domestic

companion also feared that Andrew was developing memory loss and possible

dementia. 

The court recognizes that the parties dispute whether Andrew was cognitively

impaired. But the evidence given that he was not impaired—that he had not been

diagnosed with dementia or Alzheimer’s and that an urgent care doctor had checked

a box indicating normal mood while examining Andrew for jaw pain—is hardly

conclusive evidence that Andrew did not suffer fromsome mental deficits. While the

jury must “not be left to speculation and conjecture in deciding between two equally

probable possibilities . . . it is not necessary that the evidence exclude every other

reasonable hypothesis. It is only necessary that there be evidence that would tend to

eliminate such other causes as may fairly arise from the evidence,” and reasonable

inferences may be drawn from circumstantial evidence. St. Louis Southwestern Ry.

Co. v. Pennington, 553 S.W.2d 436, 441–42 (Ark. 1977) (in banc). Taking these facts

in the light most favorable to Andrew, I believe there are enough facts to prevent the

jury from having to “indulge presumption upon presumption to establish” that

Andrew was impaired and the opening of the door was unintentional. Gildewell v.

Arkhola Sand & Gravel Co., 208 S.W.2d 4, 8 (Ark. 1948). 

The court also holds that the proximate cause analysis in Donnelly was not

limited to the mental state of whoever lifted the door latch. In my view, if Andrew

did not intentionally open the door, then his action of opening it would not amount

-11-

Appellate Case: 14-3752 Page: 11 Date Filed: 03/08/2016 Entry ID: 4375035 
to an efficient intervening cause under Arkansas’s proximate cause standard. If

Andrew was impaired, then the reason he opened the train’s emergency door was

because he could. If such was the case, I do not believe Andrew “affirmatively

operated the door,” and Amtrak’s failure to better secure the door may be found to

have proximately caused Andrew’s death. 

“[P]roximate causation is usually a question of fact for a jury.” Neal v. Sparks

Regional Med. Ctr., 422 S.W.3d 116, 121 (Ark. 2012). In Arkansas, “[t]he mere

fact that other causes intervene between the original act of negligence and the injury

for which recovery is sought is not sufficient to relieve the original actor of liability

if the injury is the natural and probable consequence of the original negligent act or

omission and is such as might reasonably have been foreseen as probable.” Stecker

v. First Commercial Trust Co., 962 S.W.2d 792, 796 (Ark. 1998) (jury question on

proximate causation where doctor failed to report possible child abuse and child was

subsequently harmed again). “[W]hen the voluntary acts of human beings intervene

between the defendant’s act and the plaintiff’s injury, the problem of foreseeability

is still the same: Was the third person’s conduct sufficiently foreseeable to have the

effect of making the defendant’s act a negligent one?” Hartsock v. Forsgren, Inc.,

365 S.W. 2d 117, 118 (Ark. 1963) (citing Harper & James, The Law of Torts, § 20.5;

Rest., Torts, § 447). 

The court acknowledges that Amtrak knew that over its 45 year history, 76

people have exited moving trains between stops, and at least 29 of those individuals

were confused. Amtrak also had knowledge, through experience and previous tort

claims alleged against it, that the emergency door from which Andrew most likely

exited was fairly easy to open, even when the person opening it is confused. It was

secured only by a simple dog latch in the top right hand corner of the door. Once the

dog latch is open, the door may be opened by pushing down on the door handle. 

Making the door harder to open would likely have “cause[d] [Andrew] not to do the

act” of walking off the train. Id. There was enough historical evidence of similar

-12-

Appellate Case: 14-3752 Page: 12 Date Filed: 03/08/2016 Entry ID: 4375035 
incidents to conclude that Amtrak may have breached a duty to Andrew, and that

evidence likewise presents a jury question on proximate cause. 

Tort plaintiffs who are confused or disoriented have escaped summary

judgment or adverse jury verdicts on negligence claims even where they took the final

action before their accidents. See, e.g., Northrup v. Archbishop Bergan Mercy Hosp.,

575 F.2d 605, 606–08 (8th Cir. 1978) (district court did not err in refusing to reverse

jury verdict for plaintiff where confused decedent fell after hanging from ledge

outside of unsealed hospital window); see also Williams v. Melby, 699 P.2d 723, 725,

728–29 (Utah 1985) (reversal ofsummary judgment for defendant where plaintiff had

arranged furniture in dangerousfashion and then fell through bedroomwindow while

disoriented). Moreover, in casesregarding unwitnessed train exits, there seems to be

an important difference between circumstances that “are wholly unknown to the

parties,” Donnelly, 16 F.3d at 945, and a circumstance in which there is evidence of

confusion. See, e.g., Harris v. Nat’l Pass. R.R. Corp., 79 F. Supp. 2d 673, 678 (E.D.

Tex. 1999) (“Unlike the present case, there was evidence [in the Kilsgaard case,

where the court found plaintiff’s death was proximately caused by Amtrak,] that the

victim might have been disoriented and mentally confused because of his propensity

towards epileptic seizures. Here, there is no evidence that either Harris or Gust were

confused, disoriented, or disabled in any way so that they confused the vestibule door

for another door.”).

If the jury could find that Andrew was in fact impaired and that his unwitting

exit through the emergency side door was the most likely of circumstances, they

could also find that Amtrak proximately caused his fall. To state otherwise would

suggest that no plaintiff may ever succeed in proving a negligence case against a

common carrier where the decedent’s exit goes unwitnessed or where someone other

than an Amtrak employee opens the door or window from which the decedent falls—

even where the defendant has breached a duty to the plaintiff. I do not believe such

a suggestion is warranted. The district court found a dispute of material fact on

-13-

Appellate Case: 14-3752 Page: 13 Date Filed: 03/08/2016 Entry ID: 4375035 
whether Amtrak had breached a duty to Andrew, in large part based on his advanced

age and the evidence of his confusion. That evidence should also be available to the

jury to draw “reasonable inferences” concerning proximate causation. While I

believe this is a close case, on balance, I would conclude that Haukereid has created

a dispute on a genuine issue of material fact concerning causation. I respectfully

dissent. 

______________________________

-14-

Appellate Case: 14-3752 Page: 14 Date Filed: 03/08/2016 Entry ID: 4375035