The B & O railroad (RR) has a track that crosses a county street. For years. The RR stationed one of its employees for years at this crossing in order to warn oncoming traffic using the county street of an approaching train. There is no law that requires the RR to keep this employee at the crossing. You may assume that if the RR had never placed an employee at the crossing, a claim of negligence against the RR would not be successful. In fact, However, The RR had an employee at the crossing for years. As the train approached the employee stood out into the county street and warned all traffic to stop. The employee live in the area and hence knew many of the automobile drivers that used the crossing. For the last three years the RR has been experiencing declining business and never had more than two trains crossing the county street on a given day. The poor business also led to employee layoffs. On December 3rd, the employee who worked the county street crossing was laid off. She was no replaced. hence, no RR employee has worked the county street crossing. In the view of the RR the sound of an oncoming train would be warning enough to cars approaching the county street. On December 6th of the same year peter blanchard was driving his truck on the county street in question. He was making a delivery from a neighboring state. He crashed into one of the RR trains at the point where the county street and the RR track met. At all times peter was driving carfully it was a rainy night and hence he did not hear the oncomong train. You may assume that Peter will be able to establish that the accident would not have happened if the RR employee (who was laid off on 12/3) had been on duty at the time of the accident. Peter Blanchard brings negligence action against the B & O RR for its failure to have the employee present to warn traffic of oncoming trains at the crossing.

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