Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 21, 1991 TAG: 9102210557
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-6 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: By Landmark News Service
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Short
By an 81-16 vote, the House approved the measure that would allow Virginia judges to dismiss lawsuits filed by out-of-state railroad workers injured outside Virginia. Judges had that right until 1978, when the assembly took it away.
The vote was a victory for Virginia's railroads, which claimed to have paid more than $41 million in damages since 1987 to non-residents bringing suit here. In that time, railroad workers from as far away as Michigan and Alabama brought 202 lawsuits in Portsmouth and 61 in Norfolk against Norfolk Southern Corp. and CSX Corp.
Railroad lobbyists contend injured workers flock to Hampton Roads because of sympathetic juries, and that a handful of local lawyers, particularly former state Sen. Willard Moody of Portsmouth, have built lucrative practices representing the workers.
The bill generated one of the fiercest lobbying battles in the legislature in years, as the railroads and Moody and other lawyers who specialize in suing railroads hired squadrons of lobbyists to press their respective cases.
Moody was chairman of the Senate Rules Committee and the Senate Democratic Caucus in 1978, when the General Assembly moved to stop judges from dismissing suits stemming from out-of-state rail injuries. There is no evidence that he played a role in the passage of that law.
The bill now returns to the Senate for acceptance or rejection of two minor amendments attached by the House.
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by CNB