Union Pacific Railroad is free of responsibility in a fatal 1998 train accident, the Utah Supreme Court said Tuesday, but the city of Nephi might bear part of the blame.

Justices issued the ruling in a wrongful death suit filed by the family of Shelley Elder, who was killed May 27, 1998, when a 91-car freight train collided with his dump truck.

The suit says a cluster of trees on public property along the railroad tracks blocked Elder’s view.

The justices agreed with a lower court judge’s decision to dismiss the claim against the railroad, but the ruling allows the Elders and their attorney, Allen K. Young, to attempt to prove that Nephi may have had a common law duty to maintain the view of the tracks from the intersection.

The case will continue in Utah’s 4th District Court.

Nephi city cut the trees down soon after the accident, said city attorney Ben Hathaway, adding that the idea that the trees were a cause for the accident came from a witness at the scene.

Hathaway said there is a defendant missing in the suit.

“The city was not surprised that the lawsuit was filed,” he said. “It was a tragic accident, but we were surprised that they focused so intently on Nephi city, when Nephi Irrigation Co. isn’t even mentioned in the suit.”

Hathaway said the land the trees were on is owned by Nephi Irrigation Co., which is not a defendant.

But Young said Nephi Irrigation Co. only has an easement on the property and wasn’t responsible for the trees.

The land is within Nephi’s boundaries, and that may give the city a common law duty because of a 1909 case, Morris v. Salt Lake City.

“It was the primary duty of the city to exercise a reasonable care to maintain the streets in a reasonably safe condition and to guard against injury to persons and property by removing or making reasonably safe any dangerous objects in the streets,” the opinion reads, quoting Morris v. SLC.

Young called the factors that contributed to the accident a “perfect storm.” Elder was at the perfectly wrong angle at the stop sign, and when he looked south the train was blocked by trees. He looked north and continued, but two seconds later was struck by the train.

His family remembers Elder as a helpful man.

Shawn Elder said his brother was the type of person who would be at the moving truck the minute it pulled up, helping new neighbors he didn’t know.

“Everybody liked him in town. He was always there to help people,” Shawn Elder said.

Natalie Andrews can be reached at 344-2548 or nandrews@heraldextra.com.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page C1.