Train Death Settlement Is $1.3-Million

The family of a woman killed by a train at a busy Del Mar depot 18 months ago has received $1.3 million in a wrongful-death settlement, it was announced Thursday.

Usha Waney was struck and killed in December, 1990, by a northbound freight train after she fell while crossing the tracks near the passenger platform. Also killed was Roberta Halpern, who, along with her husband, Lee Kaiser, had tried to pull the downed woman from the tracks when she, too, was struck by the train.

Kaiser has filed his own lawsuit against Santa Fe Railroad, Amtrak and the owner of the nearby Seagrove parking lot, from which patrons regularly take a short cut across the tracks to reach the depot.

Waney, a La Jolla resident and executive at a San Diego clothing design firm, had mistaken the freighter for her passenger train and had dashed across the tracks with several other commuters.

The railroad claimed that Waney was trespassing on private property when the accident occurred and that it was therefore not liable for her actions. Attorneys for the family argued that both the railroad and Amtrak were aware how dangerous the short cut had become.

The out-of-court settlement required the railroad and Amtrak to pay $1 million; the owner of Seagrove Parking Lot to pay $300,000 and a developer to pay $5,000. A spokesman for the railroad declined comment.