Are Torts Getting Railroaded? Whether the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act (ICCTA) Preempts State Tort Claims Against Railroads
Bradford J Kelley
What the paper says
This article considers the question of whether the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act (ICCTA) preempts state tort claims against railroads. The author reminds readers that in 1995 the ICCTA dissolved the Interstate Commerce Commission and replaced it with the Surface Transportation Board (STB) to administer and oversee the deregulation of the rail industry. The author then reviews the different views and results in the area of state tort disputes regarding railroads. Most of these situations involve disputes between railroads and neighboring landowners, the latter of which file tort claims against the railroad, alleging property damage or injuries stemming from improper actions by the railroad. The author then outlines the arguments for and against ICCTA preemption of state tort claims. The author concludes that the railroad state tort claim cases show that the current ICCTA preemption doctrine seems to easily enable courts to displace state law based on vague statutory text.
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.00 × 0.4 = 0.00 |
| M · momentum | 0.20 × 0.15 = 0.03 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.