MTA reform bill slashes state liability for bus and train crashes

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A bill to remake the Maryland Transit Administration would cap the damages available to victims of bus and train crashes, aligning the MTA’s liability with that of other government agencies.

The House of Delegates this month passed the MTA Reform Act, which changes the agency’s governance structure to allow for more input from local governments and institutional stakeholders in the Baltimore area, which hasn’t seen a major transit upgrade in decades.

One of the goals of the bill is to prevent a governor from unilaterally stopping a major transit project with no local input, as former Gov. Larry Hogan did in 2015 with Baltimore’s proposed east-west Red Line.

The bill changes the MTA’s governance structure, eminent domain power and procurement rules, and caps its tort liability at $400,000 for a single claimant, the same as other state and local government agencies.

Unlike other government agencies, the MTA is not subject to the Maryland Tort Claims Act, and is responsible for all economic damages suffered by personal-injury claimants. Noneconomic damages against the MTA are capped, as they are in all civil cases.

The House of Delegates passed the bill 97-36 earlier this month and referred it to the Senate.

“All it would do is make it work like the rest of state government,” Del. Marc Korman, D-Montgomery, the bill’s sponsor, said of the cap at a hearing of the House Environment and Transportation Committee in late February.

At the same hearing, MTA Administrator and CEO Holly Arnold called the cap “fair and reasonable.”

George Tolley, the Maryland-based legislative advocacy director for the American Association for Justice, a trial lawyers’ group, supported the goals of the bill, but urged lawmakers not to cap damages.

“The things this bill is all about — better service, more attentive to customer needs, and accountability and oversight — are all inconsistent with a cap on damages applicable to a common carrier,” Tolley, a partner at Dugan, Babij, Tolley & Kohler in Timonium, said at a Senate Finance Committee hearing this month.

Tolley said the MTA had attempted to cap its liability many times before, but met resistance in the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee and the House Judiciary Committee, which repeatedly opted not to cap claims.

The MTA, a division of the Maryland Department of Transportation, operates the state’s transit system, including buses, the MARC train, and the Baltimore area’s light rail and subway. Its liability is governed by the Transportation Article, not the Maryland Tort Claims Act, for reasons having to do with its history as the private Baltimore Transit Company.

The bill’s fiscal and policy note says the state could save millions of dollars, but did not provide an exact estimate. The agency has had to pay multiple million-dollar claims in recent years, the fiscal note says.

The lower cap may allow the agency to save on insurance costs and may allow it to spend less on third-party contractors, which are required to carry insurance due to the MTA’s unlimited liability.

The bill also requires a technical study regarding the creation of a statewide rail authority, reconstitutes oversight boards for MARC and for Baltimore-area transit, and proposes a statewide constitutional amendment to give the agency more power to seize property via eminent domain.

“Sustainable funding must also be addressed, but governance reform is necessary as a first step towards these ends,” said Patrick Hosford, director of strategy and research at the Greater Baltimore Commission, at this month’s Senate hearing.

Jon Laria, a prominent land-use attorney in Baltimore, chairs the Baltimore Regional Transit Commission, which would be dissolved and reconstituted with a new board under the bill.

“We are constrained by what is a fundamentally and frustratingly advisory role,” Laria, who works as special counsel at Ballard Spahr, said at the House Committee hearing in February.

“It’s not that MDOT and MTA have not been good partners — they have — but ultimately our ability to exert any real control over regional transit service is limited, especially with respect to budget priorities.”