Reiss v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation

Background

Deanna Reiss sued National Railroad Passenger Corp. (Amtrak) for negligence based on injuries she said she suffered during a train trip from Washington, D.C., to Penn Station in New York. Reiss stated that she fell asleep, remained on the train after Penn Station, and was awakened by what she described as a sudden stop at Amtrak’s Sunnyside railyard in Queens. She said she was thrown forward, hit her hip and head, and lost consciousness. Amtrak disputed her account, asserting that its employees found her sleeping upright in her seat.

Reiss originally claimed that Amtrak negligently failed to check the train for passengers at Penn Station and negligently brought the train to a sudden halt at Sunnyside. In opposing summary judgment, she abandoned the sudden-stop theory and continued to pursue the claim based on the alleged failure to check for passengers.

Summary-Judgment Standard

The court explained that summary judgment is appropriate when the record shows no genuine dispute about a fact that could affect the outcome and the moving party is entitled to judgment under the law. The court was required to view the facts in the light most favorable to Reiss, the nonmoving party.

Negligence Claim

Applying New York law, the court stated that a negligence claim requires a duty of care, a breach of that duty, and injury caused by the breach. Common carriers such as Amtrak must exercise reasonable care toward passengers. A carrier may be liable when an unusually sudden and violent stop injures a passenger, but the plaintiff must provide objective evidence of an unusual and violent jerk or lurch. Reiss conceded that she had no such evidence, so she could not proceed on the sudden-stop theory.

The court also rejected the claim that Amtrak was negligent for failing to check for passengers at Penn Station. Reiss cited no authority establishing that Amtrak had a duty to perform such a check. The court explained that common carriers are subject to the ordinary negligence standard of reasonable care under the circumstances, rather than a heightened standard.

The court further held that, even if such a duty existed, Reiss had not shown that violating it caused the type of harm involved here. She offered no evidence that sleeping passengers were more likely to be thrown from their seats after a train’s last stop than during the earlier part of the trip. The court also found no evidence that the alleged failure to check for passengers was the proximate cause—that is, a legally sufficient cause—of Reiss’s injuries. References to testimony describing Sunnyside as a “dangerous place” did not establish that the alleged dangers included an increased likelihood that a passenger would be thrown from a seat or otherwise supported Reiss’s negligence claim.

Expert Affidavit

Reiss submitted an affidavit from her father, Ely Reiss, who was presented as a thermodynamics expert. The affidavit offered a new theory that lateral acceleration from turns between Penn Station and Sunnyside caused Reiss to fall from her seat.

The court stated that it could reject the affidavit because it introduced a new theory of liability. It also held that the affidavit was submitted after the expert-disclosure deadline and therefore did not comply with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure or the court’s scheduling order. In addition, the court found that Reiss had not shown that her father was qualified to give the opinions, and that the affidavit lacked evidence, calculations, or reasoning supporting its conclusory assertions. Even if the affidavit were considered, the court said, it would not show that the fall was foreseeable, more likely after Penn Station, or otherwise caused by Amtrak’s negligence.

Disposition

The court concluded that Reiss had presented no evidence showing that her injuries were a foreseeable result of, or proximately caused by, Amtrak’s conduct. It granted Amtrak’s February 11, 2022 motion for summary judgment, directed the Clerk of Court to enter judgment for Amtrak, and ordered the case closed.