Clifford Law Offices Files Case Against Metra and Glenview in Death of Young Boy

Clifford Law Offices filed on Monday, May 9, 2005, a civil lawsuit against Metra and the village of Glenview in the death of an 11-year-old boy who was killed a year ago by a commuter train at a suburban intersection that did not have pedestrian crossing gates.

Victor Olivera, a fifth grader at Our Lady of Perpetual Help parochial school in the north suburb, was on his bicycle after buying an ice cream cone at a shop across from the tracks. He was heading across the tracks on the sidewalk back to school on May 25, 2004, when a train traveling northbound through the Harlem Road intersection struck and killed him as he crossed the unguarded and dangerous tracks. Since the incident, pedestrian gates have been installed at that crossing.

"Immediately after the incident, Metra officials inaccurately portrayed Victor as going around the gates, gates which did not exist," Potts said. "They fabricated a story blaming an innocent little boy just to protect themselves and deflect blame."

Glenview village officials had been told about this dangerous intersection due to near misses with children on bikes as early as 1969. Since then, requests have been made to erect pedestrian gates at that site but were not followed up until Victor’s death.

The lawsuit names Glenview, Metra and Soo Line Railroad Company as well as the Canadian Pacific Railway, which maintained the tracks, crossing and right of way, as defendants in the lawsuit filed in the Cook County Circuit Court at the Daley Center. The train involved was a Milwaukee District North Line headed for Fox Lake.