Jury Verdict in Allman Film Fatality Trial To Be Appealed

CSX Railroad says it will appeal a Savannah, GA, jury verdict of $11.2 million rendered after a six-day trial stemming from the fatal train accident on the set of the film Midnight Rider of which CSX Railroad is required to pay $3.9 million according to the jury's apportionment.

Sarah Jones, a 27-year-old camera assistant, was struck and killed on the Doctortown, GA, trestle when a CSX train hit the movie set where she was working on Feb. 20, 2014, according to the lawsuit. Midnight Rider was to be a biopic based on musician Gregg Allman's autobiography My Cross to Bear.

Richard and Elizabeth Jones, Sarah's parents, sued a dozen defendants, including CSX, and the movie's director and producers. The Jones family reached confidential settlements with 11 defendants in 2014. CSX is the only one that went to trial.

Jay Traynham and Walker Stewart of Hall Bloch Garland & Meyer in Macon defended CSX at trial, along with Daryl Clarida of the firm's Atlanta office. Hall Bloch referred questions to a CSX corporate contact, which provided a statement: “CSX is deeply sympathetic to the terrible loss suffered by the family of Ms. Sarah Jones, but respectfully disagrees with the conclusions reached by the jury today and will appeal.”

The case was tried before Chatham County State Court Judge Gregory Sapp. The jury awarded $1.99 million for conscious pain and suffering, and $9.22 million for the full value of the life of Sarah Jones, then apportioned fault among 10 parties on the verdict form. CSX took the lion's share, with 35%. Others with portions of fault had already settled their lawsuits, except for two notable ones: The jury found no fault on the part of Jones herself or “unknown film crew members.”

Jones, like the other members of the film crew, went to work assuming they had permission to be there, according to her family's attorney, Jeffrey Harris of Harris Lowry Manton in Savannah and Atlanta. The family's lawsuit also claimed crew members had been falsely informed that only two trains a day passed through the spot where they were setting up — to film a dream sequence with a metal bed on a railroad track and William Hurt starring as Allman.

“We really struggled with the way to tell the [film production] story knowing that we were swimming upstream,” said Harris, who tried the case with associate Yvonne Godfrey and Rebecca Franklin Harris of Franklin Law in Savannah.

The film's director, Randall Miller, served a year in jail after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter and criminal trespassing. The railroad blamed Miller and pointed out that the filmmakers were trespassing on the trestle, according to attorneys.

But, like most tragedies that wind up in litigation, Harris said that “the story was more complex.” Starting with voir dire, Harris said he began trying to offer the jurors the rest of the story. “We always said it was a joint mistake,” he noted.

According to Harris, because the story has been widely publicized, he started with trying to remove potential jurors who said they had heard about it and had made up their minds. He sought to impanel the prospective jurors who said they were open to finding out what happened. Then he presented evidence of CSX policies that suggested the engineers of two earlier trains should have warned the later trains that they had seen people near the tracks earlier that day.

Additionally, an important part of the case for the Jones family was asserting that the engineer of the train that hit the crew should have tried to stop. The plaintiffs' expert testified that the engineer instead did not apply the service brake or emergency brake until five seconds after he hit the movie set — with equipment flying and crew members trying to scramble off the high trestle.

CSX lawyers argued that the engineer didn't apply the brakes because he feared the containers on the train would have tumbled off on the crew or that the train would have derailed, according to Harris, who countered that, after the crash, the engineer did hit the brakes, and the train did not derail or lose cargo.

The Jones family has started a nonprofit organization called the Sarah Jones Foundation dedicated to safety in the movie business. Some crews have initiated a final pre-filming daily safety check-called “the Jonesy” in her honor.

Midnight Rider was never finished; Gregg Allman died in May 2017. The initial lawsuit included Allman as a defendant because he had been quoted saying he was closely involved with the production. But Allman, his manager and his film company, Open Road, were dropped from the lawsuit in 2014 because they had no knowledge of the decision to film on a train trestle, according to Harris, who said of Allman, “He was completely blameless.”

***** Katheryn Hayes Tucker writes for the Daily Report, an ALM sibling of Entertainment Law & Finance. She can be reached at [email protected]. On Twitter: @KatherynHTucker.