Amtrak
PHILADELPHIA - Children killed by an Amtrak train were trespassing, a Philadelphia federal judge has found in the case of two kids using a bridge to take a short cut to a playground.
Judge Mary Kay Costello's July 17 ruling grants summary judgment to Amtrak, which successfully defended itself from a lawsuit filed in 2023 that sought $20 million in damages. Jahaad Atkinson was only 9 years old and Ah'Yir Womack was 12 when they were struck and killed by Amtrak Train 161 in April 2023.
They were on an Amtrak bridge in an effort to reach a playground four or five blocks from where they started, and evidence showed a woman on the street below yelled at them to get off the tracks but they ignored her.
One of their friends could hear the train's horn and moved off the tracks but Atkinson and Womack did not. It was established the engineer was sounding the horn and traveling below the 110-mph speed limit.
"It is not known why the decedents did not get off the tracks as the train, with its horn blowing and lights flashing, approached," Costello wrote.
"There is no dispute that the train engineer complied with all rules and regulations governing the use of the horn."
The lawsuit said Amtrak had failed to build or maintain fencing along its tracks, blaming a "gaping hole" at Central and Tilghman streets in Chester. Walking the tracks to the playground at Memorial Park was a popular choice by children, it added.
Judge Mitchell Goldberg was skeptical of this "attractive nuisance" theory, leading plaintiff lawyer Emeka Igwe of The Igwe Firm to filed a second complaint. This one alleged negligent operation of the train and a failure to monitor pedestrian safety.
Amtrak’s attorneys argued the children were trespassers on the train tracks, and that its only duty in such a situation is “to refrain from causing injury through ‘willful’ or ‘wanton’ misconduct.”
For Judge Costello, it was important that the boys were walking along the tracks and not crossing them. In fact, the only way to cross the tracks would be to do so on the street below, as the train bridge had high railings and no pedestrian access other than someone choosing to walk across it.
"The decedents were trespassers," she wrote. "As such, Amtrak's only duty was to refrain from willful or wanton misconduct. There is no evidence of any such misconduct."
