JACKSON - The Mississippi Supreme Court on Thursday threw out a $5.2 million punitive damages award against Illinois Central Gulf in a wrongful death case from Holmes County.
A Holmes County jury in 2000 ruled for members of the family of LouBertha Cox and her two sons, who died when their vehicle was struck by a train at a crossing along U.S. 49E in 1994.
The jury awarded family members $4.8 million in actual damages and $5.2 million in punitive damages from ICR and two employees.
The Supreme Court dismissed $1.5 million in actual damages awarded Cox's mother. The court said the woman did not prove the emotional and mental distress she claimed resulted from being a bystander to the accident. The other award of actual damages was upheld.
The court, led by Presiding Justice Jim Smith, said the trial judge erred in allowing the jury to consider punitive damages.
The main contentions by plaintiffs were that ICR was negligent for failing to properly sound a warning and for failing to control vegetation along its right of way which resulted in the alleged obstruction of Cox's view.
Smith, writing for the court, said the conflicting testimony about whether the train sounded a whistle or whether Cox had time to stop were ones to be settled by the jury. He said the Holmes County jury was properly instructed on those issues.
Smith said the issue of punitive damages involved whether vegetation growth was the result of ICR's negligence.
The family argued ICR had no policy regarding vegetation control. Smith said ICR had a policy regarding vegetation although not a specific one.
According to the court record, railroad employees testified that the vegetation policy was a common sense one - large trees were cut as needed, the railroad sprayed for brush control for the trees every other year and twice a year the spray train goes through for vegetation.
"There was no evidence that anyone ignored ICR's vegetation policy," Smith wrote.
"At worst, if the jury's verdict in the actual damages phase of the trial is interpreted as a finding that the vegetation had been negligently maintained, then someone did not cut as well as they should have. This court finds that the conduct involved here did not rise to the level which would warrant punitive damages."
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