The Source for Railroad Injuries & Whistleblower Protection
In a unanimous opinion, the United States Supreme Court today put an end to the bogus idea that whistleblower employees have to prove “intentional retaliation.”
The question in Murray v. UBS Securities LLC was whether whistleblower protection statutes such as the Federal Rail Safety Act require employees to prove “intentional retaliation” in addition to the…
When does a sentence not mean what it seems to say? When it is quoted out of context. And that is certainly the case with one sentence in the 8th Circuit’s Kuduk v. BNSF Ry. Co., 768 F.3d 786 (8th Cir. 2014), decision railroad attorneys love to rip out of context and wave at…
Well over a year before its string of death and derailment, Metro North was subjected to the first Federal Rail Safety Act whistleblower jury trial in the nation, Barati v Metro North. During that trial, cross examination of the Heads of Metro North’s Safety, Training, and Track Departments exposed the disconnect between the Railroad’s…
Today’s front page article in the New York Times exposes the fundamental problem with the rail management’s safety culture. When a mayor and her fire chief went to the site of a liquid gas derailment in their town, the railroad threatened to arrest them. Describing the railroad’s response to their legitimate concern over an obvious…
The second Federal Rail Safety Act jury trial in the nation has precipitated a primer on the award of FRSA attorney fees. In Brig and Buchala v. PATH, the jury found the Railroad violated the FRSA when it retaliated against two workers who complained when an unscheduled train nearly struck them. Here are excerpts…
There now are two formats for filing a Federal Rail Safety Act whistleblower retaliation complaint with OSHA: short form and long form.
On Line Short Form
OSHA recently gave workers the option to file a whistleblower complaint on line, using the form available at OSHA’s web site. This may be a good option for a worker…
The latest Federal Rail Safety Act district court decision confirms that the statutory jurisdiction of the federal courts over railroad whistleblower cases can not be limited by DOL regulations or actions.
After trackmen Donald Glista and William Orr reported injuries, Norfolk Southern Railway fired them for "conduct unbecoming" and for making "false and conflicting statements." For that blatant…
Here’s a Miscellany of Federal Rail Safety Act items, ranging from the United States Supreme Court to how to file in federal district court to how to award attorney fees.
United States Supreme Court Cites Section 20109
Protecting whistleblowers has deep bipartisan support in Congress, and the United States Supreme Court also goes out of…
In a definitive decision, a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has barred railroads from using RLA arbitration findings to preclude Federal Rail Safety Act whistleblower retaliation cases. The Court held that self-serving railroad disciplinary hearings cannot and do not have any effect on the right of employees to sue railroads for violating the FRSA.
The…
Two recent decisions clarify the "intervening event" defense, the limitations period, and the basis for emotional distress damages in Federal Rail Safety Act cases.
An "Intervening Event" Is Not A FRSA Defense
Railroads often argue that the firing of an employee was based on an "intervening event" that breaks the causal connection between the FRSA protected activity and…