Cops Gave Rail Company 18 Tickets For A Stopped Train

[MrFSS]

[SIZE=11pt]If a train blocks a crossing for too long in Elkhart County, it faces a $500 ticket. In a release issued today, the Elkhart County Sheriff's Department said it handed out 18 tickets for a stopped train. One for every 10 minutes the train wasn't moving. [/SIZE]

FULL STORY

 

[Devil's Advocate]

It's not uncommon to read a press release like this stating that tickets were handed out for fouled crossings. What's exceptionally rare is to read a follow up article confirming the fines were ever actually paid.

 

[jis]

Usually they either go into circular file or in the trashcan as far as I can tell. So there is nothing to follow up.

 

[MrFSS]

Usually they either go into circular file or in the trashcan as far as I can tell. So there is nothing to follow up.

I guess the cops do it for the PR??

 

[MikefromCrete]

This is all part of the massive meltdown of NS service in northern Indiana.

 

[jis]

Usually they either go into circular file or in the trashcan as far as I can tell. So there is nothing to follow up.

I guess the cops do it for the PR??

It does create a paper trail which can be used to counter railroad propaganda about how wonderful citizens they are when they are masquerading around as a person as the Supreme Court says they can.

 

[fairviewroad]

What would really make the railroad pay attention would be a lawsuit by a family who lost a loved one because a first responder had to take a lengthy detour due to a freight train blocking multiple crossings in a town for hours on end.

I love how the railroad spokesflack promises "jobs" to the affected communities in the form of hiring new crew for the railroad. Um, dude. I think it's the people trying to get to their existing jobs who are the most ticked right now.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Usually they either go into circular file or in the trashcan as far as I can tell. So there is nothing to follow up.

I guess the cops do it for the PR??

It does create a paper trail which can be used to counter railroad propaganda about how wonderful citizens they are when they are masquerading around as a person as the Supreme Court says they can.

As I understand it the very concept of legally recognized corporate personhood is itself the result of an erroneous and possibly intentional flaw in the wording of a Supreme Court headnote as recorded by a former president of the Newburgh and New York Railway Company. It's hard to imagine a judicial oversight of a greater importance and magnitude than the crooked concept of legal personhood bestowed upon corporations by the Fourteenth Amendment . In some sense Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission was merely the final nail in a coffin built by Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad.

 

[Paulus]

Usually they either go into circular file or in the trashcan as far as I can tell. So there is nothing to follow up.

I guess the cops do it for the PR??

For the PR and for being unaware of the fact that Federal preemption means that those tickets generally are not lawful to give out.

As I understand it the very concept of legally recognized corporate personhood is itself the result of an erroneous and possibly intentional flaw in the wording of a Supreme Court headnote as recorded by a former president of the Newburgh and New York Railway Company. It's hard to imagine a judicial oversight of a greater importance and magnitude than the crooked concept of legal personhood bestowed upon corporations by the Fourteenth Amendment . In some sense Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission was merely the final nail in a coffin built by Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad.

The headnote may not have been written properly, but it was accurate in summing up the court's opinion, the legal precedent goes back rather further, and a subsequent case two years later did include it in the ruling.

 

[neroden]

Yeah -- corporations aren't persons and don't have the rights of persons, according to precedent; it was invented by bad misreadings of cases. The tendentious argument which is actually used is that the people who control the corporation should have the same rights as people who didn't incorporate, but that's also bogus, judge-invented nonsense; corporate charters are a privilege, not a right. Of course, you would expect such bad law from the Lochner-era court; the entire line of "corporations are people" bull is from the Lochner-era court and it's just as invalid as Lochner or the Slaughterhouse cases.

There's also no such thing as "state secrets privilege" according to statute or common law. The concept originates from a ruling, US v. Reynolds, which was a case of clear error; it was a case where the government was attempting successfully to conceal criminal activity. (Eventually the truth came out.) Being founded on a crime, the entire doctrine is fruit of the poisoned tree and has no legal validity.

But we've got a fair lot of ignorant and crooked judges, so here we are.

 

[Paulus]

Yeah -- corporations aren't persons and don't have the rights of persons, according to precedent; it was invented by bad misreadings of cases.

There's also no such thing as "state secrets privilege" according to statute or common law. The concept originates from a ruling, US v. Reynolds, which was a case of clear error; it was a case where the government was attempting successfully to conceal criminal activity. (Eventually the truth came out.) Being founded on a crime, the entire doctrine is fruit of the poisoned tree and has no legal validity.

But we've got a fair lot of ignorant and crooked judges, so here we are.

And you have your JD from...?

 

[neroden]

As for the tickets? They're usually legal and enforceable. The federal rule is actually pretty specific, and I looked it up once: towns aren't allowed to ticket trains stopped at grade crossings *UNTIL* the same train has been stopped more than a particular amount of time.

I don't remember what the amount of time was, but it was something like 5 minutes or 10 minutes.

After that, state regulations apply. The tickets are valid and enforceable. There have been some clearly erroneous lower court rulings to the contrary, but the majority opinion is quite clear. The railroads are supposed to *separate the train* to clear the crossing if it would block the crossing for longer than the state maximum.

There is, of course, one giant escape clause in the federal rule: if the train has broken down, or the signal system or track damage prevents movement, or the train is otherwise unable to be safely moved, then no ticket can be issued.

(In this case, NS will get away with it because they will say "We didn't have any crews, so we couldn't safely move the train." Which appears to actually be true.)

 

[neroden]

Yeah -- corporations aren't persons and don't have the rights of persons, according to precedent; it was invented by bad misreadings of cases.

There's also no such thing as "state secrets privilege" according to statute or common law. The concept originates from a ruling, US v. Reynolds, which was a case of clear error; it was a case where the government was attempting successfully to conceal criminal activity. (Eventually the truth came out.) Being founded on a crime, the entire doctrine is fruit of the poisoned tree and has no legal validity.

But we've got a fair lot of ignorant and crooked judges, so here we are.

And you have your JD from...?

Credentialism much?

The law is meant to be understandable by any person. And it is.

Of course, the "legal realist" school of thought says that the law is whatever the crooked judges say it is. That's one way of looking at it, of course. Legal realists don't think a legal education is worth much, by the way, because from their point of view the law is all about the political leanings and social connections of the judges.

 

[neroden]

In practice (and I looked the history of this up, too), it seems that historically, the Class Is generally just pay the fines on the tickets.

The total cost is so small that they don't even think about it. What's a few $500 tickets to them?

 

[Devil's Advocate]

The headnote may not have been written properly, but it was accurate in summing up the court's opinion, the legal precedent goes back rather further, and a subsequent case two years later did include it in the ruling.

So far as I am aware the accuracy of the written record does indeed remain in doubt as well as the motivation of the author(s). While the citation of the record is not in doubt the legal relevance of the citation (and all subsequent citations) are thus also in doubt.

In practice (and I looked the history of this up, too), it seems that historically, the Class Is generally just pay the fines on the tickets. The total cost is so small that they don't even think about it. What's a few $500 tickets to them?

I was wondering if that was a likely outcome. Seems like $9,000 would likely be considered peanuts compared to employing a lawyer in the world's most expensive legal system. That being said I have to wonder if there isn't some sort of back door legal wrangling to divest NS of any acceptance of guilt as part of their payment.

 

[neroden]

In practice (and I looked the history of this up, too), it seems that historically, the Class Is generally just pay the fines on the tickets. The total cost is so small that they don't even think about it. What's a few $500 tickets to them?

I was wondering if that was a likely outcome. Seems like $9,000 would likely be considered peanuts compared to employing a lawyer in the world's most expensive legal system. That being said I have to wonder if there isn't some sort of back door legal wrangling to divest NS of any acceptance of guilt as part of their payment.

IIRC it's a civil infraction in most places, so there isn't any acceptance of guilt. It's like a parking ticket, not like a speeding ticket. :-(

 

[MrFSS]

There has been some discussion on the Indiana Rail Forum about this. Several members, there, are actually NS engineers. Their position is, if a police office tried to board the train to give them a ticket they would call the RR police as the local office would be trespassing on RR property. Also, they said they could lock the engine doors and the officer wouldn't have any way to give them the ticket without breaking in. Does this type ticket have to be given to someone as a speeding ticket is, or can they put it under the engine windshield wiper!

 

[neroden]

The ticket is delivered to the local NS office (this is actually made clear in the article).

 

[Bob Dylan]

Interesting that Indiana Law doesn't give LE Jurisdiction anywhere in the State! In Texas all LE Officers ( and they are many and varied!!)have legal jurisdiction anywhere in the State!

In my hometown there were 2 RRs, MoPac and the Katy, with 2 sets of tracks (parallel through town) and Trains blocked every crossing in town for hours @ a time!

The State Legislature passed a special bill that allowed tickets and fines to the RRs for doing this and the local cops issued hundreds of them, which as jis said were put in the circular file!

After UP the Octupus got through gobbling up every RR in sight, the tickets continued to be issued as every Mayor and Local Politician ran on a platform of getting the RRs to stop this practice and promising that build Overpasses over the tracks!

Lo and behold 50 years later there are 2 Overpasses over the Tracks and Freight Trains continue to clog (2 Daily Eagles run through, do a rolling station stop) the tracks in town on the roads without Overpasses but no more tickets are issued!

The tickets probably made a good Bonfire during Cold Weather when a Gang was doing trackwork!