Husband Files Suit Over Wife’s Death on Railroad Tracks

The husband of one of two women killed in December by a freight train at a Del Mar rail depot on Friday sued Amtrak, the Santa Fe railroad and two parking lot operators for encouraging public use of a dangerous crossing at the site.

Lawyers representing the families of Roberta Halpern and Usha Waney also filed claims for unspecified damages against the city of Del Mar, the state of California, Caltrans and the Los Angeles-San Diego Rail Corridor Agency, alleging they did nothing to close the crossing despite knowledge of its danger.

A claim is the first step in suing a public agency. If the claim is not settled within 45 days, the agency can then be sued in court.

Lawyers Friday called the Del Mar depot crossing an accident waiting to happen.

“As long as that train station has existed there, as long as they’ve provided parking, rail passengers have been issued an open invitation to cross the tracks in front of the Del Mar depot at unsafe times and locations,” said Mark Robinson Jr., an attorney who filed the lawsuit on behalf of Lee Kaiser, husband of Roberta Halpern.

Attorney Gerald Davee, who said he will file a similar suit next week on behalf of the family of Usha Waney, added: “There was even a bike rack and planks near the tracks on which to walk across. If that’s not a welcome mat, I don’t know what is.

“These agencies knew that this has been a dangerous crossing for a long time. And now it’s become a deadly crossing.”

The wrongful-death lawsuit, filed in Superior Court in San Diego, claims there were not sufficient warning signs or barriers to prevent rail passengers from crossing directly over the tracks in front of the train station, nor was there an overpass to permit safe crossing.

The suit also alleges that the design of the station, which features public parking on both sides of the train tracks, is unsafe and contributed to the deaths of the two women.

Also, on the day of the accident, no warnings were issued by officials to alert passengers to the presence of oncoming passenger or freight trains--a practice that has now been put into place, attorneys claim.

Reached Friday afternoon, several parties named in the lawsuit declined to comment.

John Jacobsen, director for government and public affairs for Amtrak in Washington, said the agency was not responsible for fencing off the depot. “We don’t own the tracks. They’re not our property,” he said.

“Any fence would have to be installed by the owner of the parking lot.”

Lawyer for the families filing the suits questioned recent statements made by Amtrak and Santa Fe railroad officials about pedestrian fatalities.

“Their attitude is that anyone who crosses the tracks is a trespasser and that whatever happens to them is their own fault,” Robinson said. “That arrogant attitude has to change, because not only is it wrong, it’s insensitive. People are dying here.”

Added Davee: “This is a situation where invited passengers were being put in danger by the facility. These people weren’t trespassers. They were paying customers.”

The deaths of Waney and Halpern were among a rash of train fatalities involving pedestrians to occur in the fall and winter. The accident unfolded the morning of Dec. 5 as Waney, of La Jolla, left her parked car in the Seagrove parking lot on the west side of the tracks, near the 1906-vintage depot.

Waney, 47, a clothing designer on a business trip to Gardena, heard the warning at a nearby crossing and mistakenly thought it marked the arrival of her Los Angeles-bound passenger train.

Along with several other passengers, she dashed across the tracks at an unauthorized but heavily used shortcut, less than 6 feet from the platform area and marked by a bike rack and decorative railroad ties.

Waney tripped, however, and was knocked unconscious when her head struck the rail.

As more than a dozen rail commuters at the suburban depot watched in horror, Lee Kaiser and his bride of three months, Roberta Halpern, tried in vain to pull the woman from the tracks.

Waney was killed instantly when the 2,000-ton freight train struck her as it squealed to a stop. Halpern, 44, a cancer researcher who lived with Kaiser in Encinitas, later died of injuries sustained when she, too, fell in front of the train. Kaiser was not seriously injured in the rescue attempt.

A week after the mishap, John King, owner of the 125-space Seagrove parking lot who is among those named in the lawsuit, extended a fence between his lot and the train tracks to close the spot where passengers had crossed.

King did not return telephone calls Friday.

Lawyers claimed that videotapes shot several weeks after the accident show passengers crossing the tracks from the parking lot--at another unsanctioned spot just south of the accident site--in order to reach their trains.

“If you park in the Seagrove lot, you have to cross the tracks to reach the train. It’s inevitable,” Robinson said. “On the day we taped, there were 40 or 50 people crossing those tracks near the spot where our clients were killed. And there is still no warning sign and little attempt to stop the practice--not then, not now.”

The operator of Ace parking lot on the east side of the depot was also named in the suit.

The lawyers also said officials only recently began alerting passengers at the depot to the presence of oncoming trains--especially northbound trains coming around a blind curve just south of the station.

They said that either railroad or Amtrak officials should have alerted passengers that freight trains were making unscheduled runs on the tracks that morning.

The claims filed Friday allege that the city of Del Mar owns part of the property on which the Seagrove lot is built and therefore had responsibility over the lot and the crossing.

Del Mar Mayor Jan McMillan refused to comment.

In the lawsuit, Kaiser is also alleging emotional distress as a result of watching his new wife suffer fatal injuries before his eyes. “He reached out, and she was gone,” Robinson said, “dragged down the rails.”

In interviews, both Kaiser and Naveen Waney, son of the dead La Jolla clothing designer, said the loss has hit the families hard.

Kaiser said he has returned to the train station only once--to show his parents the site of his wife’s death in the days after her funeral.

“I don’t have to go near that train station,” said the automobile design engineer. “I can recall vivid pictures of what happened there without going anywhere near it. Trains are pretty haunting to me right now. I don’t like hearing their whistles or watching them pass.”

Try as he may, he still cannot block out images of the approaching freight engine, of seeing his wife struck. “I still don’t get through a day without thinking of her a dozen times. I just have the feeling her death was unnecessary, that it didn’t have to happen.”

Naveen Waney said his father, Hashu, has taken the death especially hard and has spent many nights over the past four months watching family videos where Usha was pictured.

“He feels like he’s a loner now, no matter how much the family has tried to rally to his side.”

Waney said he and his father are planning a trip to their native India this summer as a way to seek further family support.

Meanwhile, Kaiser is haunted by a persistent question: Would he make the same life-saving effort again?

“I was going to watch somebody die, and I’m not very good at that,” he said. “But if I stood on that train platform with the knowledge of the pain and suffering I’d have to go through if things went wrong, I can’t tell you I’d do it again.”