An NJ Transit engineer who suffered late-career head injuries after passing out in a locomotive cab with non-working air conditioning that reached 114 degrees in July 2020 was awarded $11.6 million by a jury in a federal labor lawsuit on Monday Dollar.
Former engineer Scott Lupia, 47, of Denville, filed a lawsuit under the Federal Employer’s Liability Act on December 27, 2021 after being ordered on July 21, 2020 to operate a locomotive with a broken air conditioner. A train master recorded a temperature of 114 degrees in the cabin when he reported the broken air conditioner, court documents say.
He was ordered by a top train master to operate the train anyway, the lawsuit said. Refusing to leave train 6659 would have been considered disobedience and could have cost Lupia his job, court filings say.
The high temperatures caused him to pass out, but he was able to radio an 911 and apply the emergency brakes to stop the train at Summit before losing consciousness and banging his head on metal in the cabin, the report said Legal action .
