The Jim Thorpe Holiday Train
SCRANTON, Pa. – A snowman stands accused of grabbing a woman’s breast on a holiday train ride for children in Pennsylvania, and a federal judge has allowed parts of that case to move forward.
Defendants including the Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railway must face a negligent hiring claim brought by Angelique Yonkauske, a New Jersey woman who claims an actress in a snowman costume took a break from entertaining kids to grab her breast, to the shock of family members nearby.
Yonkauske, her three children and their spouses and her four grandchildren boarded the Jim Thorpe Holiday Train in November 2022. The ride featured a Santa, a reindeer and a snowman, and inside that snowman costume was Kaitlyn Fetterolf.
The lawsuit, filed last year, said Fetterolf was “extremely animated” while hugging and taking selfies with passengers on the Santa Train. When she approached Yonkauske, the suit says, she put her left land on Yonkauske’s left shoulder to indicate an incoming hug.
“However, with her right hand, Defendant Fetterolf grabbed Plaintiff’s right breast and squeezed the same hard, several times,” the lawsuit says.
“This shocking and traumatizing event, and the aftermath, took place in front of strangers, including children that Plaintiff did not know, as well as her grandchildren.”
Making matters worse, Yonkauske says she had had breast surgery performed four months earlier and suffered an injury there two months before the train ride. A manager allegedly did not take her complaint seriously and refused to provide her with the name of the snowman. Another staffer gave that information to Yonkauske.
“In addition to having her right to privacy and right to bodily integrity violated, as a result of Defendant Fetterolf’s offensive touching and assault, the entire event was ruined for Plaintiff and her family,” the suit says.
Fetterolf, Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railway and Reading, Blue Mountain & Northern Railroad Company are the defendants in a five-count complaint. The railroad defendants moved for judgment on the claims against them, winning some of their arguments in a ruling last week from Scranton federal judge Robert Mariani.
But assault, vicarious liability and negligent training claims will move forward. It was Fetterolf’s first day on the train, so the allegations of failure to train are sufficient to pass the motion for judgment, Mariani says, though they are “somewhat vague and lacking detail.”
RBMNRR argued it couldn’t be vicariously liable for the snowman’s conduct, but Mariani said in a “close call,” Yonkauske has shown enough to proceed.
“It is undisputed that the alleged sexual assault occurred on the premises of RBMNRR and within the authorized time and space limits designated by RBMNRR,” he wrote.
“Moreover, it may be true that Defendant Fetterolf’s alleged intentional/reckless/negligent sexual assault was actuated, at least in part, to serve her employer’s purposes and was of the kind and nature that she was employed to perform.”
The assault came survived because the breast was allegedly repeatedly “squeezed.” Yonkauske’s claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress failed though, as it couldn’t clear the high bar on extreme and outrageous conduct set by the law.
