The Source for Railroad Injuries & Whistleblower Protection
Instead of naming the railroad, workers are free to name a manager as the defendant in a Federal Rail Safety Act complaint. And there are good reasons for doing so.
When a manager is singled out as illegally retaliating against workers, it is a form of public “shaming” that does not help his future career…
In an important decision clarifying the broad scope of adverse action under the Federal Rail Safety Act, Judge Theresa C. Timlin confirms that the mere act of filing of charges against an injured railroad employee is an unfavorable personnel action sufficient to support a FRSA violation.
The facts in Vernace v. PATH Rail are:…
A leading U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has clarified when rail workers can recover damages for outrageous conduct by their employer railroad. Building on two cases that I handled (Metro North Railroad v. Buckley in the U.S. Supreme Court and Higgins v. Metro North Railroad in the Second Circuit), the Second Circuit Court of…
It’s one of the hoariest acts in the railroad repertoire of retaliation: first, invent rules setting an arbitrary deadline for the reporting of injuries, and then use the threat of discipline under those rules to discourage the reporting of injuries. Classic examples of absurd reporting rules are Metro North Railroad’s “all injuries must be…
There has been a flurry of Federal Rail Safety Act decisions in the past few weeks, all positive for workers, and all demonstrating a trend toward higher punitive damage awards.
Pfeifer v. Union Pacific Railroad concerns retaliation against a conductor who reported safety hazards. After he reported rough spots on the railroad track, he was…
As Yogi Berra would say, “It’s starting to get late early out there” for the Norfolk Southern Railway. OSHA has blown the whistle on NS’s campaign of retaliation against injured workers, and the Federal Rail Safety Act awards and punitive damages just keep piling up.
In the latest, Nelson v. Norfolk Southern Railway, OSHA’s…
It’s official. Thanks to the Federal Rail Safety Act, railroads can no longer impose discipline based on vague safety rules that are triggered only when a worker reports an injury.
Every railroad has so-called "safety" rules stating employees must "be alert and attentive" and "take care to prevent injury to themselves" and "when in…
Here’s the latest judicial decision rejecting the bogus "election of remedies" defense railroads continue to raise in Federal Rail Safety Act cases. This one is especially sweet in that it allows a worker to continue her frontal attack against Norfolk Southern Railway’s notorious practice of firing employees who report on duty injuries.
The facts are…
Are you fed up with rail managers who habitually ignore safety rules and regulations, and then blame the workers who get hurt as a result of management’s unsafe practices? Now you can do something about it. Here’s how to disqualify such managers from ever working in the railroad industry again.
There is a little known…
Talk about timing. I was on trial in federal court last week in a FELA injury case. The Railroad, no doubt hoping the U.S. Supreme Court would eliminate the FELA’s long standing "even to the slightest degree" causation standard and replace it with the less favorable "proximate cause," had made a low ball offer and asked the…