A first legal decision awarding damages to the family of a victim who died in the Tempi rail disaster was reportedly handed down this past week by single-justice first instance court in Athens, with the state-run Hellenic Railways Organization (OSE) and private Hellenic Train ordered to pay 400,000 euros, each.

The development was announced by labor attorney and law professor Alexis Mitropoulos.

The first instance verdict will undoubtedly be appealed, however, it marks the first time a court decision has been issued in a civil case involving the February 2023 two-train collision.

The case was brought by four family members of the inspector working aboard the north-bound passenger train.

In a reasoning of the decision, the judge in the case wrote that “…Hellenic Train failed to ensure that an essential communication system connecting stationmasters, conductors and (rail) traffic controllers was in full and continuous operation during the travel of the trains it leases and uses for its needs, which relates to the safe movement on the network of the second defendant, OSE S.A., which controls the rail infrastructure.”

In terms of state-run and owned OSE, the court decision states that it “…failed to provide the railway network and the rail infrastructure operator with the critical safety and rail traffic control systems, whose operation and use of which would certainly have prevented the accident in question. From the aforementioned facts, it has been established that the accident in question was due to the misconduct, i.e. gross negligence, of OSE and Hellenic train.”

Finally, the court decision recognizes the convergent negligence on the part of the Larissa stationmaster of Larissa and the train conductors (employees of the two companies), blaming them for “not having exercised the diligence they should and could have shown… The actions and omissions of the stationmaster and the passenger train’s engineer caused the trains to collide head-on with these results.”

Hellenic Train is a subsidiary of Italy’s state-owned FS holding company.