Litigation

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May I comment on this, as a guy who spent a good bit of time as a witnesses for the defendants (the railroads) in Federal Courts and before the NTSB. 


Counsel for the defendant must disclose to counsel for the plaintiff the identity of the witnesses they plan to present in their defense. Plaintiff's counsel then has the right, pre-trial, to "depose" the witnesses the defense will be presenting. If you are an officer of the railroad and defense counsel will be using you, you can just bet on plaintiff's counsel wanting to find out what you know and what you are going to say ! 


In all the cases I was involved in, the depositions were held in the offices of the defense counsel, and our railroad lawyers were present. Before the day of deposition, there was usually an afternoon or a morning of "preparation" for the actual deposition. 


At depositions, plaintiff's counsel is very skillful in drawing out information... What the railroad's published procedures are, where they can be found, if they are universally observed, the consequences for non-compliance with the procedures, whether the witness has ever seen a violation of the procedures and what he did about it, and on, and on, and on. And, of course, they want copies of all procedural and incident-specific documentation. 


Once, in Washington, I had the opposing counsel ask me to list every item in my office. A book case was one of the items I gave, and he wanted to know what books were on the shelves of the bookcase. When I hemmed-and-hawed a bit, he said "If you don't tell me what items are on your book case, we'll just get a warrant to go and get them!" Very quickly did I remember every item that was stashed on my bookcase, and what I couldn't remember, I took an imaginative guess at !!! 


This is one of the methods lawyers use to develop information. 


The only redeeming feature to these escapades was lunch. Lawyers would always take you to eat at the best restaurants...on their firm's credit card, of course, which was then billed back to the railroad (probably with a hefty additive.) 


I'm glad I don't have to participate in this kind of thing anymore. It was not an enjoyable part of my railroad career. 


-- abram burnett 
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