Runaway Railcar Costs Georgia Plant Worker Both Legs, CSX Settlement Reaches $16 Million
After trial: CSX appealed the retrial judgment to the 11th Circuit. While that appeal was pending, the parties settled for $16 million and CSX paid it, so the retrial verdict itself was never reviewed on appeal. CSX separately sued General Mills to recover the settlement under the companies' sidetrack agreement, and that indemnification fight was still being litigated as of a June 2024 federal court order. That later dispute is between CSX and General Mills only and does not affect what Burchfield recovered.
Won by Warshauer Woodward Atkins, LLC.
Douglas Burchfield, a General Mills employee at the company's cereal plant in Covington, Georgia, suffered the partial amputation of both legs when a loaded railcar rolled loose and ran him over during a routine railcar switch in June 2005. He sued CSX Transportation, which had delivered the car, arguing it put the car into service with a defective handbrake. A first jury cleared CSX, but the 11th Circuit reversed after finding the trial court had improperly let CSX show the jury a reenactment video, and a retrial jury found Burchfield zero percent negligent, CSX 100 percent negligent, and awarded him $20,559,004. CSX appealed, and while that appeal was pending the parties settled the claim for $16 million, which CSX paid.
What happened
On June 5, 2005, Douglas Burchfield, a General Mills employee, was training a coworker, Rodney Turk, on the Trackmobile used to switch railcars at General Mills' cereal plant in Covington, Georgia. Turk had no formal training on the machine. The two moved a loaded railcar, AEX 7136, that CSX Transportation had delivered to the plant two days earlier. They parked it on a grade on Track 22, uncoupled it without chocking its wheels or engaging the derailer, and used the Trackmobile to move an empty car out of the way. AEX 7136 rolled loose down the track, struck the Trackmobile and the empty car, and the Trackmobile and AEX 7136 rolled over Burchfield. Both of his legs were partially amputated.
Burchfield sued CSX, arguing the railroad had put a railcar into service with a defective handbrake, violating the Federal Safety Appliance Act's requirement that railcars carry an efficient hand brake, and that the defect let the car roll away. A jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia sided with CSX at the first trial. Burchfield appealed, and the 11th Circuit reversed in 2011, ruling the trial court had let CSX show the jury a video reenactment of the handbrake without first establishing that the video's conditions matched the actual railcar and accident. The opinion in that appeal lists Michael J. Warshauer and Lyle Griffin Warshauer of Atlanta as counsel for Burchfield.
At the retrial, the jury found that Burchfield was zero percent negligent and CSX 100 percent negligent, and awarded him $20,559,004 on April 19, 2012. CSX appealed that judgment to the 11th Circuit. While the appeal was pending, the parties settled the claim for $16 million, and CSX paid it.
The settlement later became the subject of a separate contract fight. CSX sued General Mills, arguing a 1989 sidetrack agreement between the companies required General Mills to cover losses connected to the Trackmobile, since General Mills, not CSX, owned and operated the Trackmobile that rolled over Burchfield along with the railcar. In a June 2024 order, a federal judge in Atlanta ruled for CSX on two threshold issues in that dispute, including that Burchfield's accident arose from the operation of the Trackmobile within the meaning of the sidetrack agreement. In laying out the case history, the court treated the $16 million as already paid to Burchfield by the time General Mills refused to indemnify CSX for it.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Burchfield v. CSX Transportation, Inc., 636 F.3d 1330 (11th Cir. Mar. 30, 2011): the reported opinion's counsel block names Michael J. Warshauer and Lyle Griffin Warshauer of Atlanta as attorneys for plaintiff-appellant Doug Burchfield; the opinion establishes the June 2005 accident at the Covington plant, the runaway railcar, the first-trial defense verdict for CSX, and the reversal for the improperly admitted reenactment video.
- 2.CSX Transportation, Inc. v. General Mills, Inc. (11th Cir. 2023): recounts that the retrial jury found Burchfield zero percent negligent and CSX 100 percent negligent and awarded more than $20 million, that 'CSX appealed,' and that 'while CSX's appeal was pending, CSX and Burchfield settled for $16 million.'
- 3.CSX Transportation, Inc. v. General Mills, Inc., N.D. Ga. No. 1:14-cv-00201-TWT, Opinion and Order, June 21, 2024: details the accident (Rodney Turk, the Trackmobile, railcars AEX 7136 and AEX 7138, no chocks and no derailer engaged), confirms 'the partial amputation of both legs,' confirms the '$16,000,000.00 settlement with Burchfield pending the resolution of the 11th Circuit appeal,' describes the sum as a settlement CSX paid to Burchfield, and grants CSX partial summary judgment on the sidetrack agreement issues.
- 4.CSX Transportation, Inc. v. General Mills, Inc., 846 F.3d 1333 (11th Cir. Jan. 30, 2017): confirms the retrial jury found CSX solely at fault and awarded Burchfield more than $20 million, and that 'the parties later settled the claim for $16 million.'
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