By John Cooper, Railroad Worker Injury Attorney

Railroads from Amtrak to Union Pacific are hiring at a record pace despite the stagnant economy. As explained in a McClatchy-Tribune News Service report from September 27, 2011, every rail company from BNSF and CSX to Norfolk Southern is feeling an acute need for new brakemen, conductors, engineers, trackmen and rail yard workers because the corporations’ workforces are aging and retiring and also because freight and passenger volumes have increased steadily over the past 5 years.

The news that any industry is currently adding employees is certainly welcome. As an experienced rail worker injury attorney who has represented numerous clients in FELA cases, however, I can’t help but have some concerns over what the influx of thousands of new rail employees will mean for the safety of the people who operate and maintain trains, tracks and railroad crossings and signals.

Ensuring workplace safety depends on experience and training, and no matter how well trained a person is to do his or her job, experience always counts for more when responding to dangerous situations. In fact, an analysis of fatal and nonfatal work-related injuries reported to the U.S. federal government and cited by the PBS documentary series Frontline revealed that “new employees, regardless of age, experience a high and disproportionate number of injuries.”

Veteran rail workers are at risk for being injured on the job, of course, especially for suffering repetitive stress injuries. But the likelihood of a catastrophic accident such as a collision or derailment that causes a severe injury or death increases for new hires. Railroads must do all they can to prevent such incidents by providing classroom and hands-on instruction, pairing inexperienced employees with experts in mentoring relationships, and continually evaluating new hires’ performance and targeting training toward strengthening deficiencies.

EJL

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper, Lewis & Appleton is an injury law firm whose attorneys have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases.  Attorneys will our firm have served as chairmen of the Railroad section of the American Association for Justice. One of our attorneys wrote a major attorney’s encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Our offices are in Virginia Beach and Hampton, Virginia (VA), and Elizabeth City, North Carolina (NC). Our lawyers also hold licenses to practice in South Carolina (SC), West Virginia (WV), Kentucky (KY), Florida (FL) and Washington, DC, and have handled hundreds of railroad injury and FELA cases throughout the eastern United States. Rick Shapiro and James Lewis were included in the 2011 issue of Best Lawyers in America. They, along with fellow attorney John M. Cooper, were also named 2011 Virginia Super Lawyers for Personal Injury Law, an honor which fewer than 5 percent of outstanding lawyers receive. We would like to send you one of our FREE reports about railroad injury and FELA cases, such as Dos and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). We provide free initial confidential injury case consultations, so call us toll free at (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. Further, our lawyers proudly moderate the Yardlimits Railroad Community Forum and donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.

By Randy Appleton, Railroad Worker Accident Attorney in Virginia

In his latest post our Virginia Beach Injuryboard blog, my fellow FELA and railroad accident attorney John Cooper writes about a federal labor case involving a Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway employee who was suspended after reporting an on-the-job accident. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration ordered BNSF to pay the woman $300,000. John notes that OSHA has recently found for several rail workers in similar workplace retaliation cases. To read more, click over to “BNSF Railroad Employee Unfairly Suspended for Reporting an Injury Awarded $300K by OSHA.”

EJL

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton is an injury law firm whose attorneys have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases.  Attorneys will our firm have served as chairmen of the Railroad section of the American Association for Justice. One of our attorneys wrote a major attorney’s encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Our offices are in Virginia Beach and Hampton, Virginia (VA), and Elizabeth City, North Carolina (NC). Our lawyers also hold licenses to practice in South Carolina (SC), West Virginia (WV), Kentucky (KY), Florida (FL) and Washington, DC, and have handled hundreds of railroad injury and FELA cases throughout the eastern United States. Rick Shapiro and James Lewis were included in the 2011 issue of Best Lawyers in America. They, along with fellow attorney John M. Cooper, were also named 2011 Virginia Super Lawyers for Personal Injury Law, an honor which fewer than 5 percent of outstanding lawyers receive. We would like to send you one of our FREE reports about railroad injury and FELA cases, such as Dos and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). We provide free initial confidential injury case consultations, so call us toll free at (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. Further, our lawyers proudly moderate the Yardlimits Railroad Community Forum and donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.

By John Cooper, Virginia FELA Plaintiff’s Attorney

Injuries may have been avoided when the crew of a Norfolk Southern freight train hauling agricultural products intentionally derailed near Ridgeway, Virginia (VA), on the night of August 13, 2011. The engineer and other rail employees felt they had no choice but to jump the tracks when they spotted a large object that had been placed on the rails. Knowing a derailment might cause them injuries, they took that smaller risk over the greater danger from hitting the obstruction.

According to a report on the intentional derailing in the Martinsville Bulletin, the crew did well to keep most of the rail cars on the track when they steered the locomotive off its course. This prevented a spill and limited property damage. Most importantly, none of the crew members got killed. Railroads always claim that no injuries occurred before really knowing if or how badly their workers may be hurt.

If you suddenly got thrown around in a metal box connected to hundreds of tons of shifting weight, don’t you think you might be injured at least a little? But before you even got to go home, supervisors would circle and encourage you not to go to the doctor unless you were bleeding out of your eyes. A doctor or emergency room visit would create paperwork and threaten everyone’s no-injury bonuses, the higher-ups would argue.

Police determined that the object, which they did not identify, had been set on the tracks on purpose. By the Thursday following the accident, three boys between the ages of 12 and 14 had been arrested and charged with the class 6 felony of obstructing a railroad. Even though the children apparently did not want to injure or kill anyone, they could still face penalties of up 5 years in jail and fines of $2,500.

Those potential punishments may strike some as harsh, but if the boys did try to sabotage the NS train and its crew, what the youngsters did was no less than put the engineer’s, conductor’s and trackman’s lives at risk. Train derailments, whether intentional or accidental, often injure and kill people on the train and others living, working or just nearby when a train leaves its tracks.

As a Virginia personal injury attorney who has represented railroad employees injured on the job, I’m glad that no one died in the accident near Ridgeway, VA. I hope that anyone learning about the threat to life and limb created by the incident will refrain from doing anything similar in the future.

EJL

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton is an injury law firm whose attorneys have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases.  Attorneys will our firm have served as chairmen of the Railroad section of the American Association for Justice. One of our attorneys wrote a major attorney’s encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Our offices are in Virginia Beach and Hampton, Virginia (VA), and Elizabeth City, North Carolina (NC). Our lawyers also hold licenses to practice in South Carolina (SC), West Virginia (WV), Kentucky (KY), Florida (FL) and Washington, DC, and have handled hundreds of railroad injury and FELA cases throughout the eastern United States. Rick Shapiro and James Lewis were included in the 2011 issue of Best Lawyers in America. They, along with fellow attorney John M. Cooper, were also named 2011 Virginia Super Lawyers for Personal Injury Law, an honor which fewer than 5 percent of outstanding lawyers receive. We would like to send you one of our FREE reports about railroad injury and FELA cases, such as Dos and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). We provide free initial confidential injury case consultations, so call us toll free at (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. Further, our lawyers proudly moderate the Yardlimits Railroad Community Forum and donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.

By Kevin Duffan, Attorney With Carolina FELA Law Firm

My colleague John Cooper, a FELA railroad injury lawyer, reported that a NC man who was injured while working for Norfolk Southern, and later fired because supervisors claimed he falsified his injury statement, was awarded more than $122,000 in compensatory and punitive damages and attorneys’ fees. John noted the man’s claim arose not from the injury alone but from the rail carrier’s decision to illegally punish the worker for getting hurt.

LC

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton is an injury law firm whose attorneys have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases.  Attorneys will our firm have served as chairmen of the Railroad section of the American Association for Justice. One of our attorneys wrote a major attorney’s encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Our offices are in Virginia Beach and Hampton, Virginia (VA), and Elizabeth City, North Carolina (NC). Our lawyers also hold licenses to practice in South Carolina (SC), West Virginia (WV), Kentucky (KY), Florida (FL) and Washington, DC, and have handled hundreds of railroad injury and FELA cases throughout the eastern United States. Rick Shapiro and James Lewis were included in the 2011 issue of Best Lawyers in America. They, along with fellow attorney John M. Cooper, were also named 2011 Virginia Super Lawyers for Personal Injury Law, an honor which fewer than 5 percent of outstanding lawyers receive. We would like to send you one of our FREE reports about railroad injury and FELA cases, such as Dos and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). We provide free initial confidential injury case consultations, so call us toll free at (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. Further, our lawyers proudly moderate the Yardlimits Railroad Community Forum and donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.

By Rick Shapiro, Rail Worker Cancer Lawsuit Attorney in Virginia

A retired plumber who was diagnosed with mesothelioma almost a decade after he stopped working with asbestos-infused wallboards and joint compounds is set to receive just more than $41 million in negligence awards and punitive damages from the companies that produced and supplied the dangerous products. John Casey, who worked as plumber in California for 40 years, won jury verdicts in two separate civil trials brought against Kaiser Gypsum Company and construction contractor FDCC California.

Jurors in San Francisco, CA, determined that both the manufacturer and the contractor had failed to provide adequate warnings about the adverse health effects of breathing in asbestos particles. Exposure to asbestos is practically the only cause of the fatal cancer mesothelioma.

Casey’s attorney’s, Michael A. Vasquez, Esq. and Robert J. Bugatto, Esq. of Vasquez, Estrada & Conway, LLP, “presented evidence showing that the knowledge of hazards of exposure to asbestos dates prior to the 1920s … [and]  knowledge of its dangers had progressed to the point of knowing it caused cancer by at least as early as the 1950s.” Showing juries what companies that failed to protect their employees against on-the-job asbestos exposures knew and when they knew it is often key to securing verdicts favorable to workers who developed cancer or another disease.

I have used this legal strategy myself when representing former rail employees such as brakemen, conductors, engineers and trackmen in occupational disease and wrongful death lawsuits brought against railroads under the provisions of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act in Virginia (VA). FELA place a high and nondelegable duty on rail companies to protect their workers against toxic substance exposures. This duty includes an obligation to inspect rail yards, train cars and locomotives for potential sources of asbestos, diesel fumes and radiation, as well as a duty to warn employees about the presence of health risks. Any dereliction of those statutory duties makes railroads such as Amtrak, CSX or Norfolk Southern potentially liable for claims of negligence and for making monetary damage awards to workers who become sick.

While asbestos has all but disappeared from newer equipment used in the railroad industry, the material still exists in insulation in older buildings, pipe sleeves in some locomotives and in fire resistant materials such as brake pads on decades-old undercarriages. The greatest risks for asbestos-related occupational disease, however, rest with retired rail employees. Damage done by asbestos can takes as long as 30 or 40 years to become apparent and can run the gamut from asthma to cancer to respiratory failure.

EJL

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton is an injury law firm whose attorneys have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases.  Attorneys will our firm have served as chairmen of the Railroad section of the American Association for Justice. One of our attorneys wrote a major attorney’s encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Our offices are in Virginia Beach and Hampton, Virginia (VA), and Elizabeth City, North Carolina (NC). Our lawyers also hold licenses to practice in South Carolina (SC), West Virginia (WV), Kentucky (KY), Florida (FL) and Washington, DC, and have handled hundreds of railroad injury and FELA cases throughout the eastern United States. Rick Shapiro and James Lewis were included in the 2011 issue of Best Lawyers in America. They, along with fellow attorney John M. Cooper, were also named 2011 Virginia Super Lawyers for Personal Injury Law, an honor which fewer than 5 percent of outstanding lawyers receive. We would like to send you one of our FREE reports about railroad injury and FELA cases, such as Dos and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). We provide free initial confidential injury case consultations, so call us toll free at (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. Further, our lawyers proudly moderate the Yardlimits Railroad Community Forum and donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.

By Richard N. Shapiro, Norfolk, VA FELA Plaintiff’s Attorney

Working from offices located less than 9 miles from the headquarters of Norfolk Southern and having represented injured and ill railroad employees and retirees for nearly 25 years, I pay very close attention to news and legal proceedings involving the third-largest Class I railroad in the United States.

Consequently, it did not surprise me when I learned from the Beaver County (PA) Times that two former NS employees have filed a whistleblower and wrongful termination lawsuit, claiming that Norfolk Southern has engaged in “an ongoing pattern of covering up work-related accidents by falsely accusing employees of lying and then firing them.” According to legal papers, the men lost their jobs after one had the tips of several fingers amputated while he was working with unfamiliar equipment he had not been trained to use. The other person reported the incident to his supervisor, was charged with lying and let go. The railroad blamed the on-the-job injury on employee error and accused the reporting co-worker of intentionally misstating facts.

An attorney working with the men who had been employed by NS at a rail yard in Coway, Pennsylvania, wrote that Norfolk Southern’s own data on employment actions show that the railroad has a history of dismissing workers “for being the one injured … or merely for truthfully stating the facts they observed as a witness.”

I do not know enough about the current lawsuit to comment on whether the plaintiffs’ claims can be sustained in court. However, I have practiced FELA and railroad injury law long enough to know that rail companies will do just about anything to deny or limit their liability when engineers, conductors, trackmen and trainmen suffer on-the job injuries. I know that railroads are not above intimidating workers into not reporting accidents in rail yards, on trains and along tracks. CSX has faced such allegations, and in 2010, Amtrak was ordered to pay a woman whom a court determined the passenger railroad had fired in retaliation for reporting an injury.

If Norfolk Southern has been adding financial insults to physical injuries by forcing rail employees out of their jobs after they get hurt, I hope the mistreated workers receive the lost wages and monetary damage awards they were originally denied.

EJL

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton is an injury law firm whose attorneys have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases.  Attorneys will our firm have served as chairmen of the Railroad section of the American Association for Justice. One of our attorneys wrote a major attorney’s encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Our offices are in Virginia Beach and Hampton, Virginia (VA), and Elizabeth City, North Carolina (NC). Our lawyers also hold licenses to practice in South Carolina (SC), West Virginia (WV), Kentucky (KY), Florida (FL) and Washington, DC, and have handled hundreds of railroad injury and FELA cases throughout the eastern United States. Rick Shapiro and James Lewis were included in the 2011 issue of Best Lawyers in America. They, along with fellow attorney John M. Cooper, were also named 2011 Virginia Super Lawyers for Personal Injury Law, an honor which fewer than 5 percent of outstanding lawyers receive. We would like to send you one of our FREE reports about railroad injury and FELA cases, such as Dos and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). We provide free initial confidential injury case consultations, so call us toll free at (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. Further, our lawyers proudly moderate the Yardlimits Railroad Community Forum and donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.

By Randy Appleton, Rail Worker Occupational Disease Attorney

In the sixth and final installment of his analysis of rail worker protections under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, or FELA, my Virginia personal injury law firm colleague Rick Shapiro explains that former employees who sue railroads after developing cancer do not need to present testimony from a doctor who definitively state that exposures to toxic substances or radiation directly caused their illnesses. Rick wrote that this means plaintiffs in FELA occupational disease lawsuits against a rail company like Amtrak, CSX or Northern Southern can rely on jurors to decide whether “past on-the-job exposures and current health problems are related.”

EJL

By John Cooper, Virginia Railroad Occupational Illness Attorney

My fellow FELA plaintiff’s attorney and VA personal injury law firm colleague Rick Shapiro has just written an article for our main website in which he explains that Amtrak, CSX, Norfolk Southern and other rail companies have legal responsibilities to protect their employees from job-related diseases such as cancer caused by exposures to toxic substances. Rick notes that courts have repeatedly found that railroads have a duty to inspect their properties and practices to ensure compliance with industrial hygiene and safety rules and standards.

EJL

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton is an injury law firm whose attorneys have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases.  Attorneys will our firm have served as chairmen of the Railroad section of the American Association for Justice. One of our attorneys wrote a major attorney’s encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Our offices are in Virginia Beach and Hampton, Virginia (VA), and Elizabeth City, North Carolina (NC). Our lawyers also hold licenses to practice in South Carolina (SC), West Virginia (WV), Kentucky (KY), Florida (FL) and Washington, DC, and have handled hundreds of railroad injury and FELA cases throughout the eastern United States. Rick Shapiro and James Lewis were included in the 2011 issue of Best Lawyers in America. They, along with fellow attorney John M. Cooper, were also named 2011 Virginia Super Lawyers for Personal Injury Law, an honor which fewer than 5 percent of outstanding lawyers receive. We would like to send you one of our FREE reports about railroad injury and FELA cases, such as Dos and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). We provide free initial confidential injury case consultations, so call us toll free at (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. Further, our lawyers proudly moderate the Yardlimits Railroad Community Forum and donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.

By Randy Appleton, VA FELA Plaintiffs’ Attorney

In the fourth installment of a six-part analysis of rail worker protections under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, or FELA, my Virginia personal injury attorney college Rick Shapiro explains that “Amtrak, CSX, Norfolk Southern and similar freight and passenger railroad companies can be held liable for negligence when they do not warn their employees of inherently dangerous conditions when such conditions exist or when the companies have knowledge about those conditions.” Rick also notes that failure to warn about dangers from asbestos, radiation and diesel fume exposures can be cited by people who bring occupational disease claims against railroads.

EJL

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton is an injury law firm whose attorneys have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases.  Attorneys will our firm have served as chairmen of the Railroad section of the American Association for Justice. One of our attorneys wrote a major attorney’s encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Our offices are in Virginia Beach and Hampton, Virginia (VA), and Elizabeth City, North Carolina (NC). Our lawyers also hold licenses to practice in South Carolina (SC), West Virginia (WV), Kentucky (KY), Florida (FL) and Washington, DC, and have handled hundreds of railroad injury and FELA cases throughout the eastern United States. Rick Shapiro and James Lewis were included in the 2011 issue of Best Lawyers in America. They, along with fellow attorney John M. Cooper, were also named 2011 Virginia Super Lawyers for Personal Injury Law, an honor which fewer than 5 percent of outstanding lawyers receive. We would like to send you one of our FREE reports about railroad injury and FELA cases, such as Dos and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). We provide free initial confidential injury case consultations, so call us toll free at (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. Further, our lawyers proudly moderate the Yardlimits Railroad Community Forum and donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.

By John Cooper, VA Railroad Worker injury Attorney

My fellow Federal Employers’ Liability Act plaintiffs’ attorney Rick Shapiro has written an interesting article for our Virginia personal injury website about the extent of liability railroads such as Amtrak, CSX and Norfolk Southern have for protecting their employees from on-the-job injuries, occupational diseases and fatal accidents. Rick cites the FELA statute and several U.S. Supreme Court and appeals court decisions to show that railroads have a nondelegable duty to ensure none of their workers get injured, sick or killed due to negligence, even when an accident or exposure to a toxic substance occurs on premises not owned or maintained by the railroad.

EJL

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton is an injury law firm whose attorneys have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases.  Attorneys will our firm have served as chairmen of the Railroad section of the American Association for Justice. One of our attorneys wrote a major attorney’s encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Our offices are in Virginia Beach and Hampton, Virginia (VA), and Elizabeth City, North Carolina (NC). Our lawyers also hold licenses to practice in South Carolina (SC), West Virginia (WV), Kentucky (KY), Florida (FL) and Washington, DC, and have handled hundreds of railroad injury and FELA cases throughout the eastern United States. Rick Shapiro and James Lewis were included in the 2011 issue of Best Lawyers in America. They, along with fellow attorney John M. Cooper, were also named 2011 Virginia Super Lawyers for Personal Injury Law, an honor which fewer than 5 percent of outstanding lawyers receive. We would like to send you one of our FREE reports about railroad injury and FELA cases, such as Dos and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). We provide free initial confidential injury case consultations, so call us toll free at (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. Further, our lawyers proudly moderate the Yardlimits Railroad Community Forum and donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.