Joshua Cacia, a Minor, by and Through His Mother and Next Friend, Paula Randolph and Joseph C. Jerrick v. Norfolk & Western Railway Company

COFFEY, Circuit Judge.

Joshua Cacia and Joseph Jerrick each brought personal injury actions in the circuit court of Will County, Illinois, alleging injuries incurred in separate incidents in the month of July 1998, which occurred as they drove their off-road vehicles along an abandoned railroad track right-of-way near Essex, Illinois, owned by the defendant, Norfolk & Western Railway Company. The plaintiffs sustained their injuries when they drove their vehicles into a creek bed where a bridge had been removed at the request of the defendant railroad. The defendant removed the cases to the…