"least we forget, these Bollywood folks live in a make believe world, unlike the one we live in.they have been wronged(in their minds) and it just ain't right! besides that, somebody has $$$$ that some lawyer(s) feels like it should be his/hers-winning is not important-money is driving this."
It isn't just Bollywood folks, it is most of the American population, I would bet good money that if some of the posters on here so outraged by this verdict had something horrible happen to them, like for example let's say their kid was killed by the train, they would be suing the railroad, many of those who complain the most about trial lawyers and the cost of lawsuits and how much of them are BS are often the first people to sue (classic example, when in office a certain Senator from Pennsylvania railed about trial lawyers and especially the 'idiotic" pain and suffering suits that netted people millions......said senator's wife was upset at a chiropractor and among other things, sued for 10 million dollars for pain and suffering)
Not going to say I agree with the verdict, but note at least one thing, that judgement represented 35% of the blame. The victims could sue the director and producer of the film, but could they get 20 million + out of them? In civil law like this it rarely is a 100% "they were guilty of negligence", in auto accidents the accident report will assign blame, so for example if someone rear ends you you might end up partly responsible, or if someone t bones you and they decide you could have avoided the accident, you can be found partly liable, etc. I don't fully understand it myself, but it is how civil law operates.
As far as this case goes, the reason they got so much money was the jury as they often do thought they were showing compassion to the person who died and the family, juries are human and they aren't heartless, and in this case likely the jury saw what happened, felt bad for the family of the deceased, and acted that way. It doesn't help that civil juries are not easy, having set on them with things like auto accidents, there are no guidelines, they leave it entirely up to the jury, so it is no wonder the lawyers play it up, appeal to sympathy, because they know juries are expected to come up with a number with no guidelines. I was on a case where a woman was suing after an auto accident, claiming that she had all these injuries, that it kept her from having sex with her husband, that she couldn't play ball with her grandkids (said grandkids, I will add, were in their late teens, early 20's), couldn't reach up to take something from a shelf, etc, it was pathos to say the least (the woman was in her early 60's, looked pretty beat by life, and it was kind of obvious she was looking to get enough money to be able to retire). There was one injury that the defense agreed was likely caused by the accident, a neck injury, so we had to come up with a figure to compensate for that...but no guidelines, nothing, we could have come back with 10 million dollars (we didn't, we based a figure on compensation to try and make her life easier from the neck injury, it was like 15k). Juries in that moment are not monsters, they are trying to figure out difficult situations that the lawmakers and the judges give absolutely zero help to them.
And yep, this was deep pockets, the jury sees a big corporation, and says "oh, they can afford it, or their insurance can", they were told that 35% of the blame was on the railroad and agreed with that, for whatever reasons, and tried to assess what a death is worth (I don't know the law in the state in question; in NJ there is literally no guidelines for the award).
The other thing with these lawsuits that doesn't come out in the outrage is that generally the trial judge will routinely knock down excessive rewards, when you read about the McDonald's case (which wasn't as straightforward as people who cite it claim and some of the 'facts' claimed are not facts of the real case), or other big awards, the plaintiff generally ends up with a much smaller award, if any, judges can throw out an award if they feel it was wrongly decided. I lived in the Bronx for a number of years, and a woman I rode the train with into NYC was married to a guy who handled lawsuits against the city (Bronx Juries being notorious for huge awards), and he routinely decimated the awards Juries gave..not to mention appelate courts will as well, so by the time this is settled it likely will be a much, much smaller award.
I haven't read the details of this particular case, but there could be reasons why the railroad was found negligent, if for example (and this is hypothetical, not in this particular case) the engine in question was operating over the speed limit for that section of track or they found that the windows on the engine were so dirty that the engineer couldn't see people on or near the tracks (assuming that if they could see they might have been able to avoid hitting the person), or if there is supposed to be a watchman on that bridge let's say and one wasn't on duty or was off taking a leak at the time who could have chased them off or warned the engineer in advance, they could be liable (and again, before people rail against me, I am talking hypothetical situations of contributory negligence, not in this case). From what I read I don't understand why the railroad was at fault here at all, it sounds like the film crew trespassed , was on tracks they shouldn't have been on, were told not to film there by the railroad, and they went ahead anyway, but the law and me never mixed well, in grad school business law puzzled me to no end how they think (or don't). It to me does show that the civil tort system needs some serious overhaul, but therein lies the problem, judges are lawyers so don't want to anger fellow lawyers, and legislatures and the like are made up to a large extent by lawyers, and they don't want, for example, to give juries legal guidelines of how to compensate plaintiffs, then go on tv complaining about trial lawyers, while they refuse to help fix the problem.
