As the investigation into the deadly Amtrak derailment last month continues, a Seattle man is one of the first injured riders to sue the passenger rail service, claiming negligence.
The “Empire Builder” was traveling from Chicago to Seattle Sept. 25 when eight cars went off the tracks near Joplin, Montana. Three people were killed and more than 50 others were hurt. Saint Matthew “Matt” Johnson, a 40-year-old from Seattle is one of nearly a dozen people to file a lawsuit against both Amtrak and BNSF, which owns and operates the tracks.
“An incident like this doesn’t occur in the absence of negligence,” said Kristofer Riddle with Chicago-based Clifford Law Offices.
The 12-page lawsuit alleges negligence in a number areas, including track maintenance.
“We’re talking about the condition of the railcars," Riddle said. "Maintenance. Operation. Inspection."
The law firm tells KOMO News it has “dispatched” a team of former NTSB officials to look into what exactly happened. Riddle would not say if that included traveling to rural Montana where the derailment took place.
It’s unclear just how badly Johnson was hurt. According to the lawsuit “he was hospitalized for care and treatment.”
“He’s suffering from physical and emotional injuries,” Riddle said. “I won’t get into the details beyond that. That’s something that will be handled on the litigation side of things. Long after these lawsuits have resolved, the victims of this derailment are going to be living with the scars from the incident for the rest of their lives.”
In December of 2017, an Amtrak train derailed in DuPont, Washington, with some of the cars falling off of an overpass and on to I-5. Riddle and his colleagues represented some of the injured riders in that incident. Three people were killed in that derailment. The NTSB concluded the locomotive’s engineer had inadequate training and took a sharp curve too fast.
KOMO News reached out to Amtrak for comment on Johnson’s lawsuit and was told there would not be one. BNSF did not reply before this story aired.