PHILADELPHIA - After her lawsuit struggled to find its footing, a woman whose brother was killed by a SEPTA train has settled with the agency and Amtrak for $20,000.
Judge Gerald Pappert on May 1 in Philadelphia federal court approved the agreement after last year stripping several of her claims from the lawsuit, which alleged Lisa King's brother Paul accessed train tracks through a hole in a fence.
She sued the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority and Amtrak as property owners, but Pappert said her "attractive nuisance" claim couldn't proceed.
The defendants had argued they had no duty to erect or maintain fencing along the railroad tracks. Attractive nuisance claims are "limited to instances in which children unlawfully enter or remain on land, [and since] Paul is an adult, the doctrine does not apply to him."
King was killed on May 12, 2022, by a SEPTA train while crossing tracks owned by Amtrak. The lawsuit said it was "common practice" to walk through a hole in the fence to get to a nearby residential area.
Amtrak knew or should have known there would be trespassers accessing the area through the broken fence, the suit claimed. In response, Amtrak said it had no duty to keep trespassers safe and that there is no law requiring adequate fencing around tracks.
“Under Pennsylvania law, courts have consistently held for nearly a century that railroads do not have a legal duty to fence off their rights-of-way or to police and patrol same in order to prevent trespassers from entering upon or crossing the tracks" the company said.
Paul King was 58 when he died. His sister hired Emeka Igwe to file the suit, and he will receive $8,000 (40%) from the settlement.