Amtrak's liability for derailment capped
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Federal law caps Amtrak's liability for Tuesday night's fatal train derailment in Philadelphia to $200 million.
The crash killed at least eight people and injured more than 200 others. According to federal investigators, the Washington-to-New York train was going 106 miles per hour as it approached a curve on which the speed limit is 50 mph.
Federal investigators said that although the engineer applied the brakes, the train only slowed down to 102 mph before its black box stopped recording.
The Amtrak Reform and Accountability Act of 1997 limits Amtrak's liability, including punitive damages, to $200 million for any single accident. The law also requires Amtrak to maintain minimum liability coverage for claims through insurance and self-insurance of at least $200 million per accident.
Amtrak was not immediately able to provide insurance information . The railroad has, however, used a single-parent Bermuda-domiciled captive called Passenger Railroad Insurance Ltd. since 1996 to provide excess liability and property insurance coverage.
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