if we're going to worry about the small fraction of Americans that die from the removal of life support - shouldn't we worry more about people whose "right" to "life" is snuffed out by dangerous railroad crossings? Shouldn't any public official involved in covering up the railroad industry's complete contempt for human life be punished?
Several months ago, the Texas official overseeing rail crossings commented in court proceedings that many in the rail industry "would consider me their friend." That may not be surprising given what the official, Darin Kosmak, has done to help railroads fight lawsuits brought by accident victims.
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...According to his court testimony, Mr. Kosmak recently admitted that his sworn statements misrepresented - unintentionally, he says - what he knew about those crossings.
Source: New York Times Texas Official Admits Missteps That Helped Railroads in Suits March 26, 2005 (Emphasis added)
More below the fold:
For the last 11 years or so, Mr. Kosmak has apparently been signing whatever sworn statements the railroads placed in front of him regarding whether federal money was spent improving safety at a given railroad road crossing before the accident leading to a lawsuit. There was a "tort-reform" type Federal law making it harder to file lawsuits against the railroads in such instances:
The railroads sought Mr. Kosmak's affidavits to help prove that federal money was spent by the state on railroad warning signs, called crossbucks. Courts have held that if federal money was used, accident victims are pre-empted from making claims under state law that inadequate warning signs made the crossing unsafe. In such federal "pre-emption" cases, Mr. Crow said, the victims have limited grounds to pursue lawsuits against railroads, which is why Mr. Kosmak's statements were important.
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Mr. Kosmak testified that railroad representatives asked him to sign the affidavits to help them in court cases and that he did so in part because he believed he was protecting the state from lawsuits arising from grade crossing collisions.
He testified that when asked by a railroad for an affidavit: "I ask them to go ahead and draft it. Or I would send them this format and say, 'Modify it, you know, and I'll review it and make any other changes.' "
Asked to comment on the affidavits, Steven Lubet, an expert in legal ethics at Northwestern University in Illinois, said, "The best you can say about it is that it is lax and not fully responsible, and then the interpretations get worse from there."
Source: New York Times Texas Official Admits Missteps.. (Emphasis added)
More than five thousand (5,000) people have died at railroad crossings in Texas alone over the last twenty years. How many of those lives could have been saved if the railroads actually maintained crossings properly?
What is the effect of "tort reform?" Corporations go on killing people through negligence because they can save a buck or two by cutting back on maintenance. Where are the hordes of right-to-life fanatics? Where is the sudden, dramatic Republican legislation mandating the "protection of life" for these largely rural victims from the heartland? Appearing for photo-ops in front of a Florida hospice, that's where.
Interestingly, Mr. Kosmak claims he isn't to blams for 11 years of making false statements under oath because he "had not understood the legal definition of personal knowledge." Last I heard, the legal definition of "personal knowledge" was "things you personally know about." Pretty complex stuff for the layman.
And, of course, we're all supposed to stop harassing this poor, misunderstood guy because of standard right-wing victimization of the wrongdoer tactic 23-c (spoken here by Texas Department of Transportation Mike Cox: "This man is a decent, good state employee, and it is time he was left alone."
Yeah, he only told these lies over the last 11 years to keep money away from those evil trial lawyers and in the pockets of the Texas department of Transportation and his good buddies in the railroad industry - and it is wrong for us to criticize this nice guy for petty things like telling lies that allowed the railroads to put off fixing dangerous crossings - thus taking the lives of more innocent people.
