Haukereid Ex Rel. Estate of Haukereid v. National Railroad Passenger Corp.

This case asks us to make a very close call. I agree with the court that door status indicators or further instruction of the Amtrak crew would not have prevented Andrew Haukereid’s death. Therefore, Haukereid’s case rests on proving.a breach of Amtrak’s duty to better secure the exit doors, and a showing that the lack of additional door safety features proximately caused Andrew to exit the train.

The court holds that, as in Donnelly, the “failure to lock the door could not have opened the door,” and that “[a]nyone lifting the latch on the exit door would have served as an ‘efficient…