Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 17, 1994 TAG: 9409200038
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The court ruled that Ralph Hodges, a former signalman for Norfolk Southern Corp., will have to go back to court for a second trial if he is to receive any damages for a crippling back injury he suffered seven years ago.
Hodges, of Roanoke, was repairing railroad equipment in Bedford County in September 1987 when he crawled into a metal 9-by-6-foot signal box that had been overturned by floodwaters.
As he worked inside the box, a 66-pound door that had been propped open slammed shut - hitting Hodges in the back and causing severe injuries that later required surgery. "It was like getting hit with a baseball bat upside your head," Hodges testified during a five-day trial in April 1993.
A Roanoke Circuit Court jury awarded him $5 million, but the amount was reduced to $4.7 million because that was the most Hodges had sought.
Norfolk Southern lawyers have said the case is just one in a string of excessive verdicts against the railroad.
Since 1990, Roanoke juries in eight cases have awarded a total of $8.5 million to injured railroad workers - from $250,000 to a clerk who fell out of his chair to Hodges' record-setting amount - but at least half of the verdicts have been overturned on post-trial motions or on appeal.
"This lawsuit is not a lottery," railroad lawyer John Eure wrote in court papers appealing the Hodges verdict.
However, the Supreme Court decision to remand the case for a new trial was based on a different issue - whether the jury should have been allowed to consider if Hodges had any fault in the accident.
In a 13-page opinion, the high court ruled that Circuit Judge Roy Willett erred when he did not tell the jury members that if they found contributory negligence by Hodges, it could affect the amount of damages they awarded.
The opinion cited "ample evidence" that Hodges should have realized the danger of his situation, but nonetheless "carelessly placed himself in a position where he could be struck by a falling door."
Nonetheless, the Supreme Court upheld a finding that NS was negligent, meaning that a new trial will focus only on the issues of contributory negligence and damages.
Lawyers for Hodges had argued that the railroad was negligent for sending him into a flood-damaged area with no emergency training.
Hodges, who is disabled as a result of accident, has had to undergo surgery to fuse vertebrae in his lower back. His lawyer, Richard Cranwell of Vinton, could not be reached for comment Friday.
Most employees in Virginia are covered by workers' compensation and are not allowed to sue their employers for on-the-job injuries. But railroad employees can sue under the Federal Employers Liability Act, which NS lawyers say makes it easier to recover large verdicts.
In earlier interviews, lawyers have offered two theories about why Roanoke juries seem to be so tough on the railroad:
Because Norfolk Southern has been downsizing and laying off employees for years in a city that grew up with the railroad, there may be a bias against the company reflected in juries.
And because of demographic changes within the city, jury pools tend to consist mostly of blue-collar workers more likely to sympathize with an employee's suing a large company.
Last month, Hodges' brother, William Blaine Hodges, was killed along with his wife and two daughters in a Vinton quadruple murder that remains unsolved.
by CNB