Attorneys Brian Spanish and Jerome Ringler, filed a negligence lawsuit against Metrolink on behalf of a dozen victims in January 2009, claiming that the engineer saw the Jeep away but did not apply the emergency brakes until away. In an October 14, 2009, article appearing in the Los Angeles Times, Metrolink announced it had reached an agreement to settle most of the remaining claims. By the following month, Metrolink paid $30 million in lawsuit settlements, with several large payments of multiple million dollars for four cases. Other litigation against Metrolink was still ongoing, raising the settlement to a tentative $39 million in December 2009, which closes the majority of the 186 complaints against the agency, eleven wrongful death lawsuits, and sixteen serious injury lawsuits.
