An Illinois school district has been awarded nearly $10 million in a lawsuit against Union Pacific Railroad after claiming a collapsed mine left an elementary school damaged.
Macoupin County Judge Patrick Londrigan awarded the Gillespie School District the judgment on Sept. 10. The district sought $22 million when it filed the lawsuit in 2010, claiming Benld Elementary School was damaged beyond repair.
Union Pacific spokesman Mark Davis said that the railroad planned to appeal.
The district sued the railroad because Union Pacific’s predecessors were subsidiaries of a company that mined the land where the school was built, The (Springfield) State Journal-Register reported. The school, which was built in 2002, is about 60 miles south of Springfield.
Pillars of coal that held up the roof of the old mines under the school property collapsed in 2009, causing structural damage to the school including busted pipes, cracked walls, floor buckling and structural separation.
The state condemned the school and it was demolished. A new school was building using $7 million in district bond money.
Any money the district receives from the lawsuit will be used to pay back debt to build the new school, Gillespie School Superintendent Joe Tieman said.
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