A jury awarded nearly $1.2 million to a locomotive engineer who alleged he injured his left knee when he fell on ballast in a rail yard.
Eugene Kinchen, then 48, was at Wildwood Yard, a flat yard owned by his employer, CSX Transportation Inc. As Kinchen walked over a walkway on the tracks toward a waiting taxi, he stepped on an area of ballast that shifted under his foot, causing him to lose his balance and fall. Kinchen claimed the intermingling of small and large ballast created an unstable walking surface, causing him to lose his balance.
