Nearly every job on a train or in a rail yard demands hard physical labor. Workers bend, twist, and routinely lift loads weighing up to 100 pounds. Employees of Amtrak, CSX, Norfolk Southern, and other Class I and short line railroads put their backs and spines at risk every single day, and far too often that risk turns into a serious, lasting injury. When it does, and when the railroad’s negligence is involved, a FELA attorney can help the injured worker pursue the compensation the law allows.
Our firm has represented injured railroad workers throughout the Eastern United States since 1985, and railroad injury law is central to our practice. Back injury cases are among the toughest claims we handle, and understanding why helps explain what it takes to win one.
How a Back Injury Ends a Railroad Career
A back injury on the railroad rarely stays minor. At best, a strained muscle or bulging disc keeps a worker off the job briefly before they recover. Many injuries do not resolve that cleanly. Treatment fails to fix the underlying problem, and reinjury and worsening symptoms become the pattern rather than the exception.
Over time, the toll adds up. A worker with a damaged back eventually finds they can no longer perform all of their job duties. Between the pain, the lifting and bending restrictions ordered by their doctors, and the growing sense that they simply cannot meet the physical demands managers and coworkers place on them, many railroaders are forced out. They leave for a different line of work or go onto permanent disability. The result is a painful double blow: earnings fall or disappear just as medical bills are mounting.
When Negligence Causes the Injury
A significant percentage of the back injuries railroad workers suffer are not simply the product of hard work. They result from defective equipment, poorly designed work procedures, and safety rules that the railroad fails to enforce.
The scenarios recur again and again:
- A handhold breaks, and a worker falls several feet from a locomotive to the ground
- Track bed ballast shifts or washes out, and a worker wrenches their lower back
- A manager refuses to assign the two or three people actually needed to move a heavy load
- A supervisor fails to make sure crews are trained in the proper use of safety devices
In each of these situations, the injury traces back to a choice made by the railroad or its managers. When a rail company or its supervisors negligently put a worker’s health in danger, that worker has the right to demand compensation under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act.
Why FELA Is Not Workers’ Compensation
FELA serves the same broad purpose for interstate railroaders that workers’ compensation serves for other employees, but the two systems work very differently.
Workers’ compensation is a no-fault system. An injured employee generally receives benefits regardless of who caused the injury. FELA is not like that. Pursuing a FELA claim means filing a lawsuit and proving that the railroad’s negligence contributed to the harm. The upside is that FELA can provide far fuller compensation than workers’ comp, including full lost wages, future earning capacity, and pain and suffering. The tradeoff is that the worker carries the burden of proof.
FELA does lighten that burden in one important way. A railroad can be held liable if its negligence played any part, even the slightest, in causing the injury. Courts often describe this as a featherweight burden of proof. Even so, a worker still has to establish that the railroad was negligent, and that is where these cases become a fight.
Expect the Railroad to Fight Back
The moment an injured or disabled railroad worker notifies a former employer that a FELA lawsuit has been filed, the company puts its own lawyers to work. Railroads defend these cases aggressively. They dispute whether the injury is truly work-related; they argue the worker was careless; and, especially in back injury cases, they often claim the damage came from something other than the job.
That is why back injury claims are among the most demanding we handle. Proving that an injury is work-related is only the first challenge. Establishing negligence by the company or its managers is a separate, often larger hurdle that typically requires investigating the equipment involved, the procedures the railroad required, the railroad’s safety records, and the railroad’s own knowledge of the hazard. A seasoned FELA attorney builds that proof and anticipates the defenses railroads reliably raise.
Our experience with these claims shows what that work can accomplish. In one case, we secured a $900,000 settlement for a brakeman and conductor who suffered a career-ending back injury when he stepped into an unseen depression in the ballast while inspecting the air brakes on his mile-long train. The fall twisted his lower back violently and ultimately required a multilevel spinal fusion. Results depend on the facts of each case, but an outcome like that reflects the detailed investigation and medical proof these claims require.
Hurt Your Back on the Railroad? Contact Us Today
If you have suffered a back or spine injury working for a railroad, and defective equipment, an unsafe procedure, or a poorly enforced safety rule played a part, a FELA attorney at Shapiro, Washburn & Sharp can review your circumstances, investigate the cause, and pursue the full compensation you deserve. Contact us at 833-997-1774 for a free consultation. We have offices in Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Hampton, Norfolk, and Chesapeake, and we are ready to put our railroad injury experience to work for you and your family.