Claims in the Chatsworth collision could exceed a federal limit of $200 million for single rail accident

Compensation awards to victims of Friday's Metrolink train crash could easily overwhelm a $200-million cap that Congress imposed 11 years ago on a railroad's liability in any one accident. The limit, adopted as part of the reauthorization of Amtrak in 1997, has never been tested on constitutional grounds, and lawyers and legal scholars differ in their predictions of whether the government will prevail in restricting payouts.

Based on recent wrongful death and catastrophic injury awards in the range of $5 million to $10 million, the amount of damages likely to result from the latest crash -- which left 25 dead and 135 injured -- could for the first time exceed the congressional cap, said Brian J. Panish, who represents a dozen victims of the 2005 Metrolink crash near Glendale and was retained Tuesday on a Chatsworth liability case. He criticized the damage limit as part of the federal government's "bailout" of Amtrak and said Metrolink should waive the cap to ensure fair settlements for all involved. "They're responsible. They should compensate the victims," he said.

Legal scholars, however, point to limits imposed on numerous categories of liability, including medical malpractice, airliner crashes, workers' compensation and defective pharmaceuticals in arguing that courts are unlikely to lift the railroads' liability limit. "I don't see any basis for challenging the cap," said UCLA law professor Richard Abel, a civil litigation expert. He pointed to cases as far back as a century ago in which courts have upheld similar ceilings.