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Quebec train derailment legal battles are already underway

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Quebec train derailment legal battles are already underway

Liabilities in the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway derailment at Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, will likely take years to sort out, but some battles already are underway.

The Quebec government notified Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. that it is liable for costs of cleaning up the estimated 1.5 million-gallon crude oil spill. CP originated the train in North Dakota, turning it over to MMA near Montreal. The government sent similar notices earlier to MMA and Miami-based World Fuel Services Corp. and an affiliate, Eden Prairie, Minn.-based Western Petroleum Co., which owned the oil and leased the tank cars. CP and World Fuel denied cleanup responsibility.

CP was added as a defendant in August in a class action filed in Quebec on behalf of anyone damaged by the accident. Also added were tank car manufacturing and leasing companies Union Tank Car Co. of Chicago; Trinity Industries Inc. of Dallas; and GE Capital's Rail Services unit.

The July suit initially named MMA; Rosemont, Ill.-based parent Rail World Inc.; affiliates; the parent's directors and officers, including Edward Burkhardt, Rail World president and majority owner of MMA; and Irving Oil Ltd., owner of the St. John, New Brunswick, refinery to which the oil was being transported.

Meanwhile, more than a dozen individual lawsuits have been filed in Cook County, Ill., Circuit Court in Chicago on behalf of some of those killed in the accident.

CP and Western Petroleum have also served on MMA notices of claim on the loss of leased railcars and for the crude oil cargo, and numerous property owners in Lac-Mégantic demanded MMA pay for the destruction of their buildings, according to an MMA bankruptcy filing in Quebec Superior Court in Montreal.

In the bankruptcy filing, MMA estimated the costs of cleaning up the oil spill at 200 million Canadian dollars ($192.5 million).

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