SEPTEMBER 2011

HLK Wins $1.7 Million for Christopher Kara In Trial Against CP Railroad

On September 28 a Minneapolis jury returned a $1.7 million dollar verdict in favor of 31-year-old Christopher Kara in a lawsuit against the Canadian Pacific Railroad.  Kara was represented by Minneapolis attorney Cortney S. LeNeave (pictured on the left) in a two week trial against two law firms representing the CP Railroad. The trial showed that Kara suffered severe injuries to his spine requiring a fusion of his lower back as a result of two separate accidents while working for the CP Railroad. The railroad denied any serious injury occurred in either of the incidents, blamed Kara’s prior back condition, blamed his smoking habit and said he was at fault for the injuries. The RR was prepared to kick him to the curb after his injuries and had never offered him a replacement job, but offered to send him to school so he could work for someone else in the future. An economist was called to show Kara’s loss of his job cost him approximately $1.1 million dollars over his career – assuming he could find a job as a store clerk or otherwise meeting his restrictions.

The first injury occurred in a messy and unkept bathroom where water had been left on the floor in violation of the RR rules for a clean, orderly and safe workplace. Kara slipped on the wet floor, almost fell but wrenched his back in the process of catching himself while carrying two heavy bags for work. He reported the incident to his supervisor but kept working that day and for the next two years. He sought treatment from a chiropractor he had been seeing on and off over the last year for various aches and pains. The RR tried to blame his injuries on a degenerative back condition by hiring their long time, tried and true, adverse examiner, Elmer Salovich. It was shown at trial that Salovich was much less than independent in his views as he had been hired since the 1970s to defend the RR in these cases. Despite the injury and pain Kara continued to work for the next two years. His doctors diagnosed him with a very large disc herniation in his low back but were all hopeful he would heal and not require surgery at such a young age. In fact, the herniation did become much smaller over the two years leading up to his second injury.

Christopher Kara's second injury occurred on August 8, 2008 when he was doing heavy work lining a switch on the RR near Minot, North Dakota. The switch was found to be hard to throw and in need of maintenance earlier in the day. Unfortunately, the RR decided not to address the requests by its employees to hire enough men to keep the rails and switches in proper condition. There were several requests made before the injury that the RR hire more men and establish a regular maintenance program where switches would be oiled or lubricated weekly. The requests fell on deft ears as RR management was handcuffed by a limited budget from Canada. The established procedure on the CP was to wait until the switches were hard to throw, report the switch, and then maintenance would be provided. The idea of a preventative maintenance program to prevent injury or malfunction of equipment was a “foreign” concept to the Canadian Pacific RR.

The jury found the Canadian Pacific RR negligent in connection with both injuries. The damages were found to be largely the result of the switch injury because ara was able to continue to work after the first injury. The switch was the straw that broke Kara’s back. The jury found the RR practices in maintaining switches to be an unsafe practice and that the unsafe condition of the switch caused serious injury to Kara, including a fusion of his low back and an end to his railroad career.

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