A SEPTA conductor died of COVID-19 in 2020. Now his estate is suing the transit system.
Michael Hill was one of seven SEPTA employees who died during the first months of the pandemic.
SEPTA is being sued by the estate of a former employee who died of COVID-19.
Michael Hill was a Regional Rail conductor who worked for SEPTA for over 30 years.
Hill started having COVID-19 symptoms on April 2, 2020, according to the lawsuit. He was admitted to the hospital two days later and ultimately died on April 14, 2020, at the age of 58.
Hill’s estate, represented by his family, is alleging that he was exposed to the virus at work, and that SEPTA failed to provide adequate contact-tracing information, as well as protective equipment for employees.
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While SEPTA required workers exposed to COVID-19 to isolate for two weeks, the complaint said, Hill and his coworkers were not informed of known or potential exposures. SEPTA employees and union leaders asked the transit agency for the names of coworkers who had been exposed to or diagnosed with the virus, but didn’t get that information, the complaint said.
Hill’s estate is able to bring the claims because of the Federal Employers Liability Act, according to the estate’s lawyer, Robert Goggin. This law applies to railroad employees who are injured or killed while on the job because of their employer’s negligence.
SEPTA declined to comment “due to the ongoing litigation.”
Hill was one of seven SEPTA employees who died of COVID-19 between the beginning of the virus and May 1, 2020.
The union that represents SEPTA employees made demands for better safety measures in early April 2020, arguing that SEPTA wasn’t doing enough to keep workers safe. Their requests included hand sanitizer and gloves to protect workers, and a policy requiring taking workers’ temperatures before shifts.
The transit authority reached an agreement with the union weeks later, in late April, following threats of a work stoppage.
Mask-wearing to prevent COVID-19 spread also became a topic of controversy on SEPTA. The authority began requiring facial coverings in April, then quickly walked back the requirement after a video of a man being removed from a SEPTA bus allegedly for not wearing a mask went viral. A mask requirement went back in place a couple months later, as the city started reopening on a limited basis.
In July, SEPTA started a memorial fund for employees who died or were severely impacted by COVID-19. It was made possible by a donation from the Delaware Valley Regional Economic Fund and other contributions from the Philadelphia Foundation and open to contributions from anyone, but the agency said it was not intended to substitute for hazard pay. The SEPTA workers later got hazard-pay bonuses as part of a union contract they voted on in November 2021.
SEPTA’s revenue was decimated in the pandemic, and it has said it is facing a huge deficit by the end of 2024, as pandemic-related federal aid runs out. Regional rail ridership remains low, at 54% of pre-pandemic levels as of April. In an effort to find savings and address low employee ratings of the agency, SEPTA recently implemented 18 employee-generated ideas that reportedly added up to $38 million in annual savings.