The Federal Employers’ Liability Act, commonly known as FELA, is the federal law that gives railroad employees the right to file a lawsuit when they are injured on the job. Unlike state workers’ compensation systems, FELA allows injured rail workers to bring a negligence claim directly against their employer and have a jury decide the case. Workers’ compensation caps benefits […]
How the FELA Statute of Limitations Works
Railroad Injury Claims in Virginia: What Workers Need to Know About Filing Under FELA
Virginia is railroad country. Norfolk Southern has been based in Norfolk for decades. CSX Transportation, which grew out of the old Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard railroads, is still a Virginia corporation, even though its operations are now run from Jacksonville. Amtrak routes crisscross the state, with principal offices just across the northern Virginia border in Washington, D.C. The result […]
Are Remote Control Operations Hurting Railroad Workers?
Remote control locomotive operations were supposed to make railroad yards safer. Instead, they created a whole new category of injuries. The technology allows a conductor to move locomotives and rail cars around a switching yard using a handheld transmitter, rather than an engineer sitting in the cab. It has been in widespread use since the early 2000s, primarily on freight […]
Filing a FELA Claim After Asbestos Exposure
Mesothelioma is a cancer that forms in the lining of the lungs. There is no cure. The five-year survival rate is around 15 percent. And in nearly every case, it is caused by inhaling asbestos fibers, sometimes from exposure that happened 20, 30, or even 40 years before the diagnosis. For railroad workers, that exposure was not accidental. It was […]