Opinion ID: 3021079
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to Sound the Horn

Text: The same “standard of ordinary care under the circumstances” that applies to the railroad’s duty to maintain a railroad crossing also applies to its operation of the train. McGlinchey, 356 F. Supp. at 1143. The evidence in this case presents a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Taylor provided adequate warning of the train’s approach before the train struck Samantha. Dodds testified that he did not hear the train’s horn sounding, its bell ringing or its whistle blowing before impact. Pennsylvania case law clearly provides that testimony from a witness who was at the scene to the effect that he did not hear a train’s horn is competent evidence that no horn was blown. See Fallon v. Penn. Cent. Transp. Co., 279 A.2d 164, 167-68 (Pa. 1971). While this evidence may not be as compelling as the conflicting evidence presented by CSX from the train’s data recorder log, the weight of the evidence is for the jury, and not the District Judge, to assess. Moreover, Bouchard supplied the District Court with an expert report that noted that the data from the train’s event recorder log showed that the whistle blasts did not comply with CSX’s internal regulations. The whistle blasts began only 848 feet from the likely point of impact, not at the whistle post (located 1,932 feet away) as required. The crew also failed to initiate the series of short and long blasts that CSX regulations 12 required when it became clear that they would pass the end of an oncoming train in close proximity to a public grade crossing. The expert opined that, if the train personnel had complied with CSX’s internal regulations, “Samantha Bouchard would have definitely heard the oncoming train over the noise made by the passing auto rack train, and would be alive today.” In light of Dodds’s testimony and the expert report, which CSX has not contradicted, we conclude that the District Court erred in removing the issue of CSX’s negligence in operating the train from the jury.