The fact of the matter is that most people here do not have enough insurance to cover a catastrophic accident. Take a look at your auto insurance and see what the limit is. Chances are if you hit a multimillion dollar car your insurance wouldn't cover all of it and you would most likely be forced to file for bankruptcy. If you fell asleep behind the wheel and ran into a gas pump the damage could be well into the millions. I'm not saying the rail company had the correct amount of insurance but who sets the level of risk and who adjusts it as values go up?
I read how some of the families have hired lawyers to go after the railway. They are trying to do it in Chicago because they can get a lot more money in the US even though they are Canadian, the accident happened in Canada, the laws that may have been violated are Canadian laws, and the rail cars were filled in Canada and never entered the US. Chances are the railway's lawyers simply said that if you can't move the suits out of a US court there's no way you have the hundreds of millions a jury could award. they probably gave the rail company the odds on moving it into Canada.
This isn't 1850, or even 1950. The science, data, and supercomputers are available to assess risk. Any quant on Wall Street is more than capable of running the numbers. I suspect that MMA was not even adequately covered to deal with the clean up of a mid-sized oil spill, let alone causing fatalities. The dreamer in me would like to see these modern day data resources used for something other than helping a .1%'er move more billions off-shore.
Agreed, insurance is about odds. Supercat(astrophe) coverage is out there, that's where Berkshire used to (maybe still does) play quite a bit. To answer your first question - apparently nobody. I don't know the acual #'s, but I'm willing to bet a good chunk of money that an actuary would tell me that the odds of having a major accident by ramping up a huge amount of oil shipments, on rickety tracks, with old equipment are way higher than me picking off a Veyron, or a gas station.
I hadn't read where the rail cars where filled, but could be, as Bakken extends north of the 49'th. I'm sure you remember the last round of US bank bailouts. I see some similarities..... an industry that has convinced the govt "Keep your hands off us, we'll self regulate, we know what we are doing"..... then when the brown stuff hits the fan, that position falls apart pretty quickly. Part of the charade I refer to.
Unfortunately, in this game of optimizing profit while minimiziing expenses, many people died.
I believe people and corporations (apparently the same thing, legally, at least when it's convenient) should be responsible for their actions, or lack thereof.
Companies either need to carry adequate insurance, or post bonds to the equivalent amount. Ante up, or don't play.
The trial needs to take place wherever the plaintiffs will receive the maximum settlement. The direct immediate reason is they deserve at least that, for the lives lost. The broader reason is that corporations won't
really pay any attention to these issues until the cost of ignoring safety/maintenance/adequate staffing is exceeded by the court awards.
Rgds, D.
