Ruling favors insurer in fatal railroad crossing accident

A federal appeals court on Friday ruled in favor of an insurer in litigation stemming from a railroad crossing accident that killed a trucker.

Bobby Jenkins was driving a semi-truck pulling a dump trailer owned by his company, Greenberg, Louisiana-based BJ Trucking Earthmover LLC, when he attempted to cross a railroad crossing in October 2018 in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, according to court papers in Progressive Paloverde Insurance Co. v. BJ Trucking Earthmover, LLC.

Mr. Jenkins neither stopped nor slowed down as he crossed the train track, the ruling said. The train’s engineer sounded the train’s horn and applied its emergency brake, but Mr. Jenkins drove into the crossing where he was struck and killed.

Among the issues in the ensuing complex litigation was whether Mr. Jenkins was an employee or independent contractor of Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based Heck Industries Inc., for which he was transporting sand, and whether Mr. Jenkins’ insurer, Progressive Holdings Inc. unit Progressive Paloverde Insurance, was obligated to defend and indemnify Heck, which was a named insured on the Progressive policy.

The U.S. District Court in New Orleans ruled that Heck was an independent contractor, and that Progressive did not have to provide coverage under a policy exclusion.

A three-judge appeals court panel affirmed the lower court.  “We agree with the district court that Jenkins was not Heck’s employee. Heck, therefore, is not responsible for Jenkins’s actions,” said the panel, which also agreed with the lower court that the sole cause of the collision was Mr. Jenkins and BJ Trucking’s negligence.

The court also held that because of a non-trucking exclusion, which barred coverage for loaded property, Progressive did not have to defend or indemnify Heck.

“The non-trucking exclusion applies because Jenkins was indisputably hauling property at the point of collision,” the panel said.

Attorneys in the case did not respond to requests for comment.