$500,000 Punitive Verdict Against Norfolk Southern After a Train Strikes a Car and Kills a Toddler
After trial: The Supreme Court of Alabama affirmed the judgment on March 8, 1996, upholding the trial court's ruling on the railroad's peremptory strike and refusing to consider juror affidavits. The opinion does not say whether the award was paid, and the trial court, judge and trial date are not stated.
Won by Cory Watson Attorneys, Cory, Watson, Crowder & Petway and Watson, Fees & Jimmerson, P.C..
A Norfolk Southern train struck a car on February 17, 1992, throwing a three-year-old boy onto the pavement, and he died shortly afterward. His parents, Gloria and Bobby Gideon, sued the railroad for wrongful death, and a jury awarded $500,000 in punitive damages. The Supreme Court of Alabama affirmed on March 8, 1996, rejecting the railroad's jury-selection and juror-affidavit arguments.
What happened
On February 17, 1992, a Norfolk Southern train struck a car in Alabama. The car was owned by Gloria Gideon and driven by John Harris. Ms. Gideon's three-year-old son was in the back seat in a child safety seat. Ms. Gideon was driving a second car behind them. The impact threw the boy from the car onto the pavement. Because the train was still moving, his mother could see him lying on the road between the cars of the train but could not reach him. When the train stopped several minutes later, she went to him. He died shortly afterward.
Gloria and Bobby Gideon sued Norfolk Southern Railway for the wrongful death of their son. Ms. Gideon also brought a separate claim for her own emotional distress as a bystander. The Supreme Court of Alabama rejected that claim in February 1994, declining to recognize negligent infliction of emotional distress as a cause of action. The wrongful death claim had stayed pending in the circuit court while that appeal ran.
That claim went to a jury. Under Alabama's wrongful death statute, a jury awards punitive damages rather than compensation for the loss itself, and the jury here awarded the Gideons $500,000 in punitive damages. The published opinion does not describe the trial testimony, the trial judge or the trial date.
Norfolk Southern moved for a new trial and lost. It then appealed on two grounds. The first concerned jury selection. The Gideons had objected under Batson v. Kentucky to the railroad's use of peremptory strikes against two potential Black jurors. The trial court asked the railroad's lawyers to explain both strikes and reinstated one of the jurors to the panel. The railroad had said it struck the juror because he worked for the same tire company as a witness and because he was probably a union member, and union members were, in counsel's words, generally 'plaintiff-oriented.' The Supreme Court noted that the railroad had never questioned the juror directly and had never asked the panel whether anyone belonged to a union, so the trial court was entitled to find that the reasons were not legitimate and race-neutral.
The second ground relied on affidavits from two jurors, collected after the verdict. Alabama courts will not use juror statements about what was said during deliberations to undo a verdict, and the Supreme Court held that these affidavits fell into that category.
The Supreme Court of Alabama affirmed the judgment on March 8, 1996, in an opinion by Justice Ingram. Leila H. Watson and Charles R. Crowder of Cory, Watson, Crowder & Petway in Birmingham appeared for the Gideons on appeal, together with Herman Watson Jr. and Charles H. Pullen of Watson, Fees & Jimmerson in Huntsville. Ms. Watson and Mr. Crowder, then of Johnson & Cory, P.C., had also represented Ms. Gideon in the 1994 appeal. Neither opinion names trial counsel.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Norfolk Southern Railway Co. v. Gideon, 676 So. 2d 310 (Ala. 1996), Caselaw Access Project·Archived copy
- 2.Norfolk Southern Railway Co. v. Gideon, Supreme Court of Alabama, Mar. 8, 1996, CourtListener
- 3.Gideon v. Norfolk Southern Corp., 633 So. 2d 453 (Ala. 1994), Caselaw Access Project·Archived copy
- 4.Gideon v. Norfolk Southern Corp., Supreme Court of Alabama, Feb. 18, 1994, CourtListener
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