By Randy Appleton, Railroad Accident/FELA Attorney

A West Virginia (WV) jury recently awarded a former NS conductor, Larry Koger, a verdict of $3,431,026.00 for injuries suffered while on the job, according to leagle.com.  Following the verdict, NS asked the court to set aside the verdict and award it a new trial.  One of the arguments NS made for the new trial was based upon what it contended were instructions which confused the jury.

“Jury instructions” are usually read by the judge to the jury once all the evidence has been presented and before the jury retires to deliberate to reach a verdict.  The “instructions” are really statements of law the jury is to apply to the evidence it hears to reach a verdict.  NS argued the jury may have believed Mr. Koger was negligent, but failed to consider his negligence in reaching its verdict. The FELA (Federal Employers Liability Act), which allows railroad employees to recover monetary damages for injuries they suffer on the job which are caused or contributed to by the railroad’s negligence, is what is known as a “pure comparative negligence statute.”  This means a jury is to consider any evidence of negligence on the part of the employee which contributes to the injury and assign a percentage of fault to each party.  For example, I recently tried a case in which the jury felt my client and the railroad were equally at fault for my client’s injuries and assigned 50 percent of the cause of the injury to my client and 50 percent to the railroad.

A FELA jury must also calculate the losses which an injured employee has suffered due to his injuries independent of its calculation of fault.  A FELA jury is typically presented with a form by the court which the jury foreman completes at the end of deliberations which reports whether the jury felt the employee was injured due to the negligence, whether the employee’s negligence contributed to his injuries and, if so, by what percentage, and the total amount of the plaintiff’s damages.  The court uses the information on the verdict form to calculate the award for the employee.

For example, if a jury finds a railroad and an employee equally at fault for his or her injuries and assigns 50% of fault to the employee and assesses the employee’s damages as $100.00, the court would reduce the damages by the percentage of the employee’s fault and enter a verdict for $50.00.

The aspect of “comparative fault” is a somewhat unique protection provided to railroad workers so that even if their actions contribute to their injuries, they still receive a recovery based upon the fault of the railroad as determined by the jury.  For these reasons, whenever an employee is injured as a result of some form of negligence on the part of the railroad or his co-workers, it is important to fully evaluate the factual causes of the injury in order to completely evaluate any potential claim arising from the injuries.

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton is an injury law firm with a long history of representing hundreds of railroad workers in FELA/ railroad injury cases. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Our offices are in Virginia Beach, Virginia (VA) and Elizabeth City, North Carolina (NC). Our lawyers hold licenses in VA, NC, SC, WV, KY and DC and have handled railroad injury and FELA cases throughout the eastern U.S.  We would like to send you one of our FREE reports about railroad injury and FELA cases, including Do’s and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad – The Railroad Worker’s FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). We are ready to talk to you by phone right now—we provide free initial confidential injury case consultations, so call us toll free at 1-800-752-0042 before giving any statement or talking to a railroad claims agent. Our injury attorneys also host an extensive injury law video library on Youtube . Furthermore, our lawyers proudly moderate the Yardlimits Railroad Community Forum and donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.