MM&A seeks to move all civil claims to Maine
The Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway is seeking to have the 19 wrongful-death and accident-injury cases against the company tried in a Maine court.
The Portland Press Herald reported that Portland attorney Robert Keach, the company’s court-appointed trustee, filed a motion Wednesday asking the U.S. Bankruptcy Court to transfer all civil claims filed against the company in Illinois, headquarters of the affiliated Rail World Inc., to Maine.
In his motion, Keach cited a section of Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, which calls for civil claims related to bankruptcy case to be tried in the same district. George Kurr, a Bangor attorney representing the estates of 18 of the 47 victims of the July 6 crash on MM&A’s line through Lac-Megantic, Quebec, told the paper that it is standard for such cases to be moved into the same jurisdiction as the related bankruptcy proceedings.
Separately, investigators in the crash found that the oil that exploded and decimated parts of Lac-Megantic was incorrectly labeled to reflect a lower volatility category. The investigators said that such errors are ultimately the fault of the oil’s buyer and importer, Irving Oil, but they did not lay specific blame or conclude whether labeling with a higher volatility rating would have reduced the damage from the unmanned train’s 60 mph derailment.
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