The New York Times found that Union Pacific had been sanctioned at least seven times between July 2001 and January 2003 for spoliation. “Union Pacific’s conduct is a stark example of how some railroads, even as they blame motorists, repeatedly side-step their own responsibility in grade-crossing fatalities. Their actions range from destroying, mishandling or simply losing evidence to not reporting the crashes properly in the first place, a seventh month investigation by the New York Times has found.” The story also reveals the destruction of dispatch tapes and black-box data by Kansas City Southern, and the falsification of evidence by Burlington Northern. See “In Deaths at Rail Crossings, Missing Evidence and Silence” New York Times, July 11, 2004.

[See also, e.g., Johnson v. Missouri Pacific, No. 00-0980 (La. App. 3rd Cir. 7/25/01), 792 So.2d 892, 898, writ denied, 803 So.2d 33 (La. 2001).]