Legal Question in Business Law in California

Re: cloosing rail car doors

IF you were injured, and if you can show you were not negligent yourself, then you may have a claim. If this is in SoCal, feel free to contact me if serious about pursuing it.

Re: cloosing rail car doors

There is often a difference between whom you can sue and whom you can sue successfully. If you are a dock employee at a company that receives boxcar shipments, you have the following alternatives:

1. Tell your boss the car door is jammed, and you cannot open it easily the way it was intended to be opened (by sliding it or by operation of a rotating lever system). Get help from one or more other employees who can watch you and assist if the door starts to fall off. Be very careful not to stand where a loose door might fall on you. Have a forklift or come-along to add some muscle.

2. Call the serving railroad and tell it about your problem. Most will dispatch a Mechanical Dept. employee who is skilled at opeening jammed car doors and/or has the proper tools.

3. Do not take chances! Car doors and interior bulkheads (if equipped) are heavy and dangerous if theu fall. Many cars are now equuipped with safety straps to catch falling doors.

If you are injured despite taking precautions, the responsibility might be on any of the following, and in any proportion, depending upon the specific facts: 1. The serving railroad. They delivered the car to you. 2. The car owner, which is mostly responsible for its maintenance (the serving or handling railroad's responsibility is rather limited). 3. The shipper, who may have mis-loaded the car or negligently loaded a car they knew was dangerous. 4. Your employer. 5. You.

An employee injured during the course and scope of his employment should consider the injury a worker's comp. matter. If the person injured is not covered, I'd focus attention on the car owner, but a physical inspection of the car immediately post-accident should be made to determine facts that (a) establish the car owner's poor maintenance, or (b) tend to place blame elsewhere.