Report: U.S. judge tosses jury trial in CSX antitrust case

A U.S. judge on Jan. 4 blocked CSX from pursuing federal antitrust claims against Norfolk Southern Railway.

In a 104-page decision, U.S. District Judge Mark Davis of the Eastern District of Virginia largely ruled for NS in a case in which CSX claimed that NS cost it hundreds of millions of dollars in damages in lost customer contracts, Reuters.com reported.

The case involved competition for on-dock rail access at Norfolk International Terminals, the Virginia Port Authority's largest shipping dock.

The judge canceled a jury trial scheduled for Jan. 18 and converted it to a bench trial on whether CSX is entitled to an injunction on a matter involving another defendant, the Norfolk & Portsmouth Belt Line Railroad Co., which is co-owned by the two Class Is. NS is the majority owner.

CSX accused NS of a decades-long effort to exclude it from rail access at the Norfolk terminal. But Davis ruled that CSX's antitrust claims were outside of a four-year legal window and therefore time-barred, Reuters reported.

A ruling that would back CSX on its antitrust allegations "would turn the legal test for damages on its head by allowing a plaintiff that has slept on its rights for years to resurrect a time-barred claim on the basis of supposition rather than evidence,” said Davis, according to Reuters.