MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. - It's been almost six years since one of the deadliest train-car collisions in Minnesota history took place in the city of Anoka, the KARE11.com Web site reports.
And it's been almost one year since a jury found the railroad largely to blame for that crash.
They awarded one of the largest verdicts in state history.
While that decision is being appealed by the railroad, the families of those killed are fighting on. They've launched a new court challenge seeking to punish Burlington Northern Santa Fe for the way the railroad conducted itself during and before that trial.
Their lawyers call it an assault on the legal system itself.
Going back to the night of that crash - September 26, 2003 - the accident scene photos constitute the very definition of 'complete destruction.'
The car, a Chevy Cavalier, was torn, parts of it shredded, into tiny little pieces.
The vehicle and the four young people it carried were scattered hundreds of feet from the point of impact.
Brian Frazier, 20, and his lifelong friend, and roommate, Harry Rhodes, 20, were headed to a party for another friend who was heading off to war. In the back seat were Corey Chase, 19, and Bridgette Shannon, 17. According to court documents, there was no drugs or alcohol found in the systems of any of the kids.
It was just after 10 p.m. when they were leaving the town of Ramsey and entering Anoka at what's called the Ferry Street crossing.
They were hit broadside by a Burlington Northern Santa Fe train.
Marks on the road indicate their little car could not have been more perfectly placed for complete annihilation.
Hit squarely in the center of the tracks by a westbound train weighing 12-million pounds and moving at 62 miles an hour.
The timing is almost incomprehensible.
A couple seconds on either side of the track would have made all the difference in the world.
Bridgette Shannon's mother says she has gone through that night a million times in her head, playing the "what if" game.
"What if they'd gone to dinner out of town that night," she asks herself. Maybe her daughter would never have been home to go out with her friends. "What if she'd been late?"
Denise, Bridgette's mom, says about her daughter, "She was late for everything, she was ALWAYS late."
Not that night.
Having witnessed so much of the evidence directly in court now, her mom says, "I have to hope they were totally oblivious to what happened. I think they were on their merry way to pickup another person and the arms and lights never worked. They went through that intersection with the train coming through."
A jury came to the conclusion that the railroad was far and away most at fault here.
The jury foreman, Alan Cornett, said seven of the eight jurors were absolutely convinced there was no way the crossing arms were working that night. He said you couldn't put the car in that position at that time if the arms were working. He called the family's case a "slam dunk." The car's black box had it travelling at 28 mph.
Technically, the jury assigned 90-percent of the blame for the accident to Burlington Northern Santa Fe.
The ruling came in spite of a police report that determined the accident scene was consistent with the driver of the car driving around the crossing arm.
But so much of the case in the civil trial dealt with missing evidence that the jury was persuaded should have been maintained by the railroad.
Mainly, there was a great deal of discussion about computerized data housed in a small metal shack by the side of the tracks which should have recorded precisely the position of the gates, the bells and lights of the crossing arm.
Court evidence established the data was downloaded at the scene on the night of the crash by railroad employees. The police report indicated that data was never turned over to police.
Copies submitted at trial were called insufficient by the families. And according to the foreman, the jury agreed.
Jury Foreman Cornett said, "So much was hidden."
Brian Frazier's mother, Christy, said the original missing downloads were damning. "It just seems to me that if it would have indicated they were in the right, it would have been handed over to the police in the first half hour. But it wasn't. And that affirms to me that the railroad had been negligent."
The jury ended up awarding the families more than $20 million. It was the largest cash-award for minors and young adults in state history.
Burlington Northern Santa Fe is appealing the decision and is asking for a new trial.
But that appeal will have to wait as the families are coming after the railroad in a separate "sanctions" hearing.
The families say it's not enough to see their kids vindicated in this accident.
They want to see the railroad punished for what their lawyers call the "abuse of the justice system" itself.
The attorney leading the case for the families says, "It's rare you can catch a corporation doing something this devious. It's rare the parties have the ability to stick with it."
His team has filed a 15-page motion detailing allegations of interference with a police investigation, destruction of evidence, tampering with evidence, concealing evidence, perjury, and the list goes on.
BNSF denies any wrongdoing.
In a response to latest case filing, the railroad calls the claims "argumentative, unsupported, and at times, inaccurate."
In a statement released to KARE11 news last week, they also challenged the earlier verdict, saying "the great weight of the evidence demonstrates BNSF acted properly and the occupants went around the gates and warning devices at this crossing."
But the families say the railroad's claims are hollow. Brian Frazier's dad told us, "If they'd wanted to, (they) could have produced that information to say, 'look, the gates were down and the lights were on,' but they didn't produce that information."
Bridgette Shannon's mom insists, "There is no way the vehicle could have been hit where it was hit, where all the evidence is if they'd gone around the arms."
The families already have the power of a jury behind them. But in the world of the courts and the law, now almost six years into it, they likely have at least two more years to go.
The only eyewitness to the crash was the engineer. But recently, the railroad says four new witnesses have come forward - six years after the crash - who claim they were driving near the crossing gates on the same night as the crash, and they saw the lights and gates working properly.
(This item by Rick Kupchella was posted on the KARE 11 News Web site May 13, 2009.)
