Baker, Pedersen & Robbins, P.A.

Jury Awards $52.4 Million to widow

Henry Gottlieb
New Jersey Law Journal
03-11-2002

A Hudson County jury awarded $52.4 million last Thursday to the widow of a Conrail conductor killed in a 1999 freight-yard accident.

The nine-member panel deliberated for two hours before making the award to Sarah Scarpello of Wood Ridge, whose husband Anthony, 54, was struck by a 190,000-pound tank car at Port Newark and who may have suffered 10 seconds of excruciating pain before he died,

Scarpello was supervising the movement of a three-car freight train from one track to another within the yard. The train had to move forward and then, after a switch was thrown, backward onto the second track. But the switch wasn't thrown and the cars moved backward onto the original track, hitting Scarpello as he walked away with his back to the train.

Plaintiffs' lawyer Gerald Baker, of Hoboken's Baker, Pedersen & Robbins, presented evidence at the 11-day trial that the brakeman on the job knew it was his job to throw the switch and was therefore responsible.

Baker says the defense evidence suggested that Scarpello, as supervisor, was responsible, and that the brakeman had reason to believe Scarpello had thrown the switch. The defense also argued that Scarpello violated safety rules by walking on the tracks.

The jury agreed almost entirely with Baker, attributing to Scarpello only 2 percent of the negligence. The reduction brings the award of $50 million for pain and suffering and $3.5 million for compensatory damages, to $52,4 million.

Conrail counsel Thomas Hart, of Millburn's Ruprecht, Hart & Weeks, declined to comment.

Baker says the pain and suffering issue was the subject of conflicting forensic testimony. Defense expert Eric Munoz, the former chief medical officer of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, testified that Scarpello died instantly without pain.

Plaintiff's expert Harold Sobel, a former Passaic County medical examiner, testified that Scarpello suffered seven to 10 seconds of horrific pain because his arm was caught and ripped out of its socket and he was literally cut in half by the wheels. Baker says that evidence apparently swayed the jury.

Baker says he argued that the independence of defense witness accounts in the official report of the accident was suspect because the evidence showed that Conrail risk managers took control of the initial investigation and Port Authority police got involved hours later.

He says the defense's best settlement offer was $500,000 and that Hudson's civil presiding judge, Maurice Gailipoli, recommended $1.5 million to $2 million during mediation. Baker says he made a $3.75 million offer of judgment in the case, Scarpello v. Consolidated Rail Corporation, HUD-L-4349-99.