Lawsuit alleges negligence in fatal train-bus wreck

The son of a woman killed when a train hit a charter bus from Texas on Tuesday afternoon in Biloxi is suing over the accident.

Charter-bus company Echo Transportation, tour company Diamond Tours Inc. and railroad company CSX Transportation are being sued for negligence. The lawsuit also names the bus driver, identified at this point only as “John Doe.”

Dee Voight is filing the lawsuit in District Court in Dallas County, Texas, seeking unspecified damages over the death of his mother, Peggy Hoffman, 73. Hoffman and three others were killed in the crash, including her husband, 82-year-old Kenneth Hoffman. The Hoffmans were retired Texas educators.

The family of Kenneth Hoffman has filed a separate lawsuit over the accident through the Lanier Law Firm in Houston.

The lawsuit filed by Voight says a sign warned of the low ground clearance at the CSX crossing on Main Street, where the bus was crossing. The crossing has a steep grade.

“The charter bus appeared unable to move from the crossing,” the lawsuit says, “when the 52-car train, pulled by three locomotives, slammed into the charter bus.

“ … After the accident, it took more than thirty minutes for witnesses and emergency crews to remove injured passengers through the emergency windows.”

The lawsuit was first reported by KXAN, an NBC affiliate in Texas.

Coincidentally, Mikal Watts, a high-profile trial attorney from San Antonio, filed Voight’s lawsuit. In August, Watts and co-defendants were acquitted in a massive BP-fraud case tried in U.S. District Court in Gulfport.

This story was originally published March 9, 2017 at 3:17 PM with the headline "Lawsuit alleges negligence in fatal train-bus wreck."