Dead men tell no tales -- but they can be sued.
A state appeals court ruled that a dead man can be held responsible for the injuries his body parts caused after he was struck by a train.
The Chicago Tribune reports that the court found it was "reasonably foreseeable" that the Amtrak train would kill 18-year-old Hiroyuki Joho, sending his body parts flying.
In 2008, Joho was killed while running to catch a train in the pouring rain, the Tribune reports. His estate is being sued by Gayane Zokhrabov, whose leg and wrist were broken after the collision.
Zokhrabov's lawyer, Leslie Rosen, argued that the case should be treated like a regular negligence case, "no different than if a train passenger had been injured after the engineer hit the brakes," according to the Tribune.
Gawker writes that the ruling should serve as a warning to people who are killed in train crashes.
"If you die in a horrific train accident, be sure to aim your severed body away from any bystanders," writes Adrian Chen.
Complex blogger Tanya Ghahremani writes that the court's ruling offers proof that "not even death can prevent the system from biting you in the ass."
Joho isn't the only dead person to be sued for causing injury. In 2010 the New York Post reported that a cop involved in the fatal shooting of Sean Bell filed a lawsuit against his estate claiming that Bell injured him with his car.
Source...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com