AKRON, Ohio — A federal court has ruled against Norfolk Southern in a suit seeking to share cleanup costs for the February 2023 East Palestine derailment with railcar owners and the maker of the vinyl chloride involved in the incident.
In a decision filed Wednesday, Judge John R. Adams of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio dismissed the case filed by NS last July against Oxy Vinyls, Dow Chemical Co., and car owners including GATX Crop, Trinity Industries Leasing, and Union Tank Car Co. [see “Norfolk Southern sues chemical, railcar firms …,” Trains News Wire, July 4, 2023]. NS said in its original filing that its suit did not change its commitment to make things right in East Palestine, but rather “seeks to ensure that others responsible … contribute to the effort.”
In dismissing NS’s complaint, Adams ruled that NS did not show — and in fact did not allege — that the other companies controlled the conditions that led to the derailment, and failed to assert “culpability or lack of due care” by the car owners that would have prevented the chemical release. He also wrote that “arguments among potential co-defendants [do] not best serve the incredibly pressing nature of this case and [do] not change the bottom line of this ligitation, that the contamination and damage caused by the derailment must be remediated.”
The Associated Press reports that NS and Oxy Vinyls declined comment on the ruling, while GATX said in a statement that the NS claims “were baseless” and the railroad’s “repeated attempts to deflect liability and avoide responsibilities for damages should be rejected.”
The ruling came the same day that National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy testified at a Senate hearing that the decision to vent and burn the vinyl chloride in five derailed tank cars, which led to the spread of the toxic chemical, could have been avoided [see “NTSB chair tells Senate hearing …,” News Wire, March 6, 2024].
Nice try.