The High Court on Friday ruled that Yu Chen-chung (尤振仲), the driver of a Puyuma Express train that crashed in 2018, should be liable to pay half of the compensation to a man who was injured.
The court said that Yu had responsibility for the deadly incident, and it is fair that he pays half of the compensation with the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA).
A passenger surnamed Su (蘇), who sustained serious injuries in the derailment, including shattered pelvic and leg bones, nerve damage to lower limbs and worsened arthritis, requested compensation for his medical expenses.
Photo: Taipei Times file
The court ruled that Yu must pay Su NT$2.93 million (US$91,045), half of the NT$5.87 million the TRA should pay in compensation.
The High Court reversed an earlier ruling.
Yu’s lawyer said he was a civil servant, as the TRA was a state enterprise then, therefore he could not be held liable for any damages related to the incident.
Yu, as an employee of the TRA, should also bear responsibility for injuries caused by the crash, the court said, citing the Civil Code’s Article 188.
Yu is serving a sentence of four years and six months. The Supreme Court in March last year upheld his conviction, finding him guilty of negligence and misjudgement for turning off the automatic train protection (ATP) system after mistakenly attributing it to power failures originating from the air compression system.
While the ATP system was off, the southbound No. 6432 train on Oct. 21, 2018, entered a curve near Sinma Station (新馬) in Yilan County’s Suao Township (蘇澳) above the permissible speed, causing it to derail, claiming the lives of 18 people and injuring more than 200.
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