Railroad Worker Left Quadriplegic at Blind Crossing; Jury Returns $15.1 Million Verdict Against CSX

On a stretch of rural road in North Carolina in 1985, Larry Edward Dixon turned onto a side road off N.C. 27 and into the path of a Seaboard train, later operated by CSX Transportation, Inc. The train struck the driver's side of his vehicle. Dixon survived, but the collision left him a quadriplegic requiring around-the-clock care for the rest of his life.

The case that followed took six years to reach trial. A central dispute was whether Dixon qualified as a railroad employee under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, or FELA, which imposes a different standard of liability than state tort law. His legal team also focused on conditions at the crossing itself: vegetation and other obstructions reduced sightlines to such a degree that the crossing was functionally blind, giving neither Dixon nor the train crew adequate warning of the other.

R. Kent Brown of Brown, Hogin and Montgomery (now Brown Moore and Associates) led the plaintiff's trial team, joined by associate Robert Newkirk. Charles 'Mac' Sasser, also of Charlotte, handled the related loss-of-consortium claim brought by Dixon's wife, Sally.

On June 19, 1991, a federal jury in Charlotte returned a verdict of $13.6 million for Larry Dixon under FELA and $1.5 million for Sally Dixon on her consortium claim, totaling $15.1 million. At the time, R. Kent Brown described it as the largest personal injury award in North Carolina history, noting that the previous high verdict of $15 million, from an uncontested 1988 auto case, remained uncollectible.

CSX appealed. In April 1993, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacated both judgments. The panel dismissed the FELA claim and remanded the Dixons' state-law claims for a new trial. The $15.1 million verdict did not survive on appeal, and the outcome of any retrial or subsequent resolution was not publicly reported.