Southern California Regional Rail Authority v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County

— This petition for writ of mandate arises out of the January 26, 2005 commuter train derailment incident near Glendale, California. Approximately 100 plaintiffs consisting of passengers, railroad workers and their survivors, brought a consolidated wrongful death and personal injury lawsuit against petitioners Southern California Regional Rail Authority doing business as Metrolink and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority (collectively referred to as Metrolink). The only issue presented at this juncture in the case is whether federal regulations preempt plaintiffs’ claim Metrolink was negligent by reason of operating one of the trains involved in the incident in push mode, i.e., with the locomotive at the rear of the train and an occupied cab car in the lead. A cab car has seats for passengers and a control cab from which the engineer can operate the train.

We first provide an overview of the case, the trial court’s ruling and our holding. In the Facts and Procedural Background that follows the overview, we detail the federal regulatory process that resulted in the promulgation of “Passenger Equipment Safety Standards” in 1999. We also consider the trial…