Railroad work has always carried real risk, and the law that protects injured rail workers reflects that. The Federal Employers’ Liability Act, known as FELA, gives employees of freight and passenger railroads engaged in interstate commerce the right to pursue compensation when they’re hurt or made sick on the job. It also covers occupational illness claims, not just sudden accidents. […]
What Railroad Workers Need to Know About FELA Claims in Virginia
Proving a Railroad Cancer Claim Doesn’t Require an Exact Dose
Railroad workers who develop cancer after years around diesel fumes, asbestos, or radiation often ask the same question. How do you prove exposure to a disease-causing amount of something when nobody was measuring it at the time? Railroad defense attorneys ask a version of the same question from the other side, usually hoping the answer is that quantified proof is […]
How the FELA Statute of Limitations Works
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 […]
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 […]
FELA vs. Workers’ Compensation: What’s the Difference for Injured Railroad Workers?
When most people get hurt on the job in this country, they file a workers’ compensation claim. The system is straightforward, more or less. The worker gets medical care and a portion of their lost wages, the employer’s insurance pays the bill, and the question of who was at fault rarely comes up. It isn’t perfect, but it works for […]
The Cancers Railroad Workers Are Most at Risk For
Railroad work has always been physically demanding, but for generations, the most dangerous part of the job wasn’t the heavy lifting or the moving of equipment. It was the air. Workers spent decades breathing diesel exhaust, handling asbestos-lined components, scraping benzene-based solvents, and walking around creosote-treated ties without knowing what those exposures were doing inside their bodies. The illnesses they […]
What the Federal Rule of Two-Person Train Crews Means for Railroad Safety
For decades, the question of how many people belong in a locomotive cab has been one of the most contested issues in the railroad industry. Workers and unions have argued that two crew members are essential for safe operations. Railroad companies have pushed in the other direction, citing automation, technology, and cost savings as reasons to operate with a single […]
Do You Need an Accident Report to File a FELA Claim?
Railroad work is dangerous, and injuries happen fast. In the chaos that follows a workplace accident, filing an incident report isn’t always the first thing on a hurt worker’s mind. Sometimes the injury doesn’t seem serious at the moment. Sometimes a supervisor brushes it off. Sometimes the pain doesn’t really set in until hours or days later, after the shift […]