By Rick Shapiro, Carolina Railroad Crossing Accident Victim’s Attorney

In his latest blog post to our Carolina personal injury attorneys’ website, my colleague Randy Appleton expresses concern that deaths at U.S. railroad crossings and on passenger and freight trains increased during 2010. Randy urges “every company, government official, driver and pedestrian … to do everything they can to decrease the possibility of collisions at crossings and on tracks.” To read more, click over to “Railroad Crossing, Train Accidents Take More Lives in 2010.”

EJL

About the Editors: The Virginia- and Carolina-based attorneys at Shapiro, Lewis & Appleton have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases and of helping victims of rail crossing accidents. Lawyers at our firm have served as chairmen of the railroad section of the American Association for Justice, the largest national victim’s injury attorney organization, and one of our attorneys wrote a major legal encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Be sure to get your free reports about railroad injury, disease and wrongful death FELA cases: The Do’s and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). Also, our railroad injury lawyers proudly moderate the Yardlimits Railroad Community Forum and donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.

By Rick Shapiro, Injured Railroad Worker Attorney and FELA Specialist

A conductor crewing a Burlington Northern Santa Fe train traveling through the small town of Navasota, Texas (TX), lost his life when he struck his head on the crossbeam of a railroad bridge and fell from the locomotive. According to a report from the United Transportation Union (UTU), to which the BNSF employee belonged, the conductor had been leaning over the running board of his moving locomotive to check a fuel level sight gauge when he was killed in this on-the-job accident.

The Bryan-College Station Eagle identified the deceased rail worker as 41-year-old Stacy Lee Rieger of Lumberton, TX, and noted that both BNSF and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the cause of the workplace accident. At the risk of being presumptuous, but also as an attorney who has represented railroad employees and their survivors in injury and wrongful death lawsuits for nearly 25 years, allow me to tell the rail company and the federal safety officials why the conductor was killed on the job: The sight gauge was located outside the crew cab, placed in such a position that he had to risk his safety to get an accurate reading.

Investigators may discover that the conductor performed his visual check at the wrong time or that he extended his head and body beyond the distance deemed safe for standard operating procedures. Neither finding would be relevant, however, because the gauge’s placement made checking it while under way inherently dangerous.

Throughout my decades of helping plaintiffs in Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA), Locomotive Inspection Act, and Safety Appliance Act cases, I have consistently held railroads to their strict liability for protecting workers. Rail corporation fail their employees when they supply poorly designed equipment, and that leaves companies such as BNSF and, in my hometown of Norfolk, Virginia (VA), Norfolk Southern, CSX and Amtrak, responsible for any workplace accident attributable to equipment that cannot be used or operated safely. And even if the equipment itself is fine, federal laws require all equipment to be safely accessible. Certainly, the location of the sight gauge would leave anyone shaking their heads bemusedly.

EJL

About the Editors: The Virginia- and Carolina-based attorneys at Shapiro, Lewis & Appleton have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases and of helping victims of rail crossing accidents. Lawyers at our firm have served as chairmen of the railroad section of the American Association for Justice, the largest national victim’s injury attorney organization, and one of our attorneys wrote a major legal encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Be sure to get your free reports about railroad injury, disease and wrongful death FELA cases: The Do’s and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). Also, our railroad injury lawyers proudly moderate the Yardlimits Railroad Community Forum and donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.

By John Cooper, FELA Plaintiff’s Attorney in Virginia

The Association of American Railroads has issued a third warning about intentional acts of vandalism in which convenience handles, steps and ladders on Autorack freight rail cars have been sawed through, making the equipment dangerous to use. The group originally alerted railroaders about this safety risk in 2009, but newly vandalized cars have been discovered in 2011.

A vandalized handle on an Autorack rail car

AAR is urging anyone who learns of the vandalism to “”pass it on to all co-workers, loading and unloading personnel, shop personnel, trainmen, contractors and all other personnel that may be working with Autorack equipment.” The organization also advises all crew member to closely inspect any recently added cars or cars returning to service after long rest periods for damage to handles, handholds, steps and ladders.

As a FELA plaintiff’s lawyer based in Virginia (VA) who has represented rail workers injured by inadequate or defective safety equipment, I find it encouraging that the warnings about the intentionally damaged rail cars have come from AAR. The association is the leading trade group for Class I freight railroads — particularly BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific —  and Amtrak. This means all major rail corporations are aware of the danger posed to their employees.

Both the Federal Employers’ Liability Act and the Safety Appliance Act make railroads strictly liable for injuries to and deaths of employees who suffer from accidents caused by defective equipment company supervisors and executives knew or should have known about. In the real world outside the courthouse, then, the federal laws hold railroads responsible for identifying and fixing problems with equipment or, failing that, responsible for compensating victims of the companies’ negligence in making trains, rail cars, tracks and rail yards safer.

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 Rick Shapiro, Railroad Worker Illness and FELA Attorney

Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Union Pacific, the two largest freight railroads providing service to ports in California (CA), have been sued by a coalition of environmental groups who claim that the diesel fumes emitted by the trucks, heavy equipment and locomotives at the companies’ rail yards pose an unacceptable cancer and lung disease risk to railroad employees and people living and working in communities around the yards.

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, which is the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit,

Millions of Californians are exposed to toxic levels of pollution from BNSF and UP’s operations. The California Air Resources Board has found that communities even 8 miles away from some of BNSF and UP’s rail yards suffer from increased cancer risk. … Almost every week, the scientific community releases new studies showing the toxicity of diesel exhaust, which is associated with premature death, cancer, cardiovascular and respiratory disease, and even obesity and diabetes. Some researchers have even found a correlation between diesel exhaust and premature birth and lower IQ in children.

The East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice and the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice are also suing the railroads on behalf of people’s who have reported health problems as a result of their exposure to diesel fumes.

In a blog post about the federal suit, the NRDC cites studies that indicate recent efforts by BNSF and UP to clean up operation at their California yards have still left some nearby residents at risks for cancers and other illnesses that are 50 times higher than state standards. A key goal of the legal action is to have particulates in diesel exhaust declared a solid waste that is subject to the same federal regulations as hazardous solid waste, just as unburned diesel fuel itself is. Should that happen, all railroads — including Amtrak, CSX and Norfolk Southern — would be affected.

The lawsuit is timely. I wrote earlier in 2011 that researchers have begun tracking diesel emissions from a Los Angeles-area BNSF rail yard while at the same time recording health problems for people living in the neighborhood bordering the yard. Shortly after I posted that blog, one of my Virginia-based FELA attorneys reported that formaldehyde in diesel exhaust had been definitively categorized as a carcinogen by federal health and workplace safety officials.

Rail employees have some of the heaviest daily exposures to diesel exhaust.While the negative health effects of long-term exposure to diesel fumes have long been recognized by doctors, regulators and lawyers, most railroad workers have remained completely unaware that numerous carcinogens are contained in diesel exhaust. Awareness of “diesel asthma” has also been growing, and I have helped a conductor who developed asthma and became unable to work after spending years breathing exhaust from diesel-powered locomotives receive a substantial FELA settlement from the rail company that had employed him.

It’s too soon to know how the environmental groups’ lawsuit against BNSF and Union Pacific will turn out, or even whether the plaintiffs will have their day in court. However, any effort that calls attention to the health risks from diesel fume exposure has the welcome potential to make railroad work for conductors, engineers, carmen trackmen and others safer, as well as living and working near rail yards less dangerous.

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, FELA Attorney in Virginia

As a Virginia-based attorney who specializes in representing railroad employees who get injured on the job and helping rail workers’ families recover fair compensation when a loved one loses his or her life due to a rail company’s negligence, I make it my business to stay up to date on accidents in rail yards, on tracks and aboard trains. Still, I was taken aback by the first line of an e-mail I just received from a fellow layer who handles personal injury and wrongful deaths cases brought under the provisions of the Federal Employers Liability Act, or FELA.

Here’s that shocking sentence: “During the first six months of 2011, 37 serious injuries occurred during switching operations, resulting in three fatalities and eight amputations, while over the past two years, five rail workers have died in accidents involving rolling rail equipment.”

What this means is far too many lives have been shattered and ended by accidents in which rail workers have been struck by or crushed between rail cars and locomotives that have rolled back into each other or collided. Those dangers are ever-present for the engineers, conductors, switchmen and trackmen who must go between rolling stock to connect car and engines.

Organizations representing railroad employees such as the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen and the United Transportation Union have long recognized the safety risks and have worked with the Federal Railroad Administration since the early 1990s to reduce the number of rollback and crush injuries and deaths. Now, the FRA has issued a 2011-2012 Safety Advisory about how rail employees can protect themselves while working between cars and locomotives.

As published in the October 11, 2011, Federal Register, the advisory urges workers and railroad corporations to

• Review current operating and safety rules that specifically address both remote control locomotive and conventional switching operations that require employees to go between rolling equipment, and determine whether those rules provide adequate protection to employees or need to be updated or revised.
• Develop, implement, and monitor sound communication protocols that require employees on multiperson switch crews to notify their fellow crewmembers when the need arises to enter between two pieces of rolling equipment — regardless of whether the employee is the primary RCO [remote control operator] or working on a conventional crew.
• Review the Switching Operations Fatality Analysis (SOFA) Safety Recommendation 1, Adjusting Knuckles, Adjusting Drawbars, and Installing End of Train Devices [please follow the link] and communicate its procedures implementing that recommendation to employees working in yards or other locations where the possibility of entering between rolling equipment exists.
• Convey to employees that their own personal safety is their responsibility and that railroad management supports and encourages those employees that make safety their number one priority, regardless of their immediate assignment.
• Convey to employees that they should encourage fellow employees to perform their tasks safely and in compliance with established railroad rules and procedures.

The recommendations and reminders from FRA apply equally to Amtrak, BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern, Union Pacific and all other long- and short-haul passenger and freight railroads. And while the advice for workers to take responsibility for their own on-the-job safety is apt, the rail companies truly do bear the ultimate responsibility for developing and enforcing procedures and practices that put employees at the least risk for suffering injuries or getting killed.

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, 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 John Cooper, FELA Attorney in Virginia

Even in this day and age, many of the track switches that make it possible for trains to change direction and get to their destinations must be operated manually. Switchman remains an essential position and job description all along the millions of railroad tracks across the United States, especially in rail yards and at side tracks leading to factories and warehouses.

The nature of switch work, though, often puts the people who dismount trains and manually operate switching devices at danger for everything from slip and fall injuries to being hit by locomotives or rail cars. An even greater risk is posed by mechanical malfunctioning of a switch itself. Two recent cases illustrate this.

In Missouri (MO), a switchman who had worked with Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway suffered an irreparable tear to the disc between two of the vertebrae in his lower back when the switch he was working first jammed, then snapped back into him. Unable to return to work, he filed an injury claim against BNSF under the provisions of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act. His attorneys, Charles Gordon Jr. and John Peak of Hubbell Law Firm, were able to help the man receive a judgment of $300,000. The money will help the man transition to a new career.

A similar accident befell a Belt Railway switchman as he was working at a junction between the main road and a siding leading to an Exxon Mobil plant in Chicago, Illinois (IL). A sticky switch sprung toward the man and severely damaged his lower spine when it hit him. Two spinal fusions later, the former switchman remains in pain and unable to work. A FELA claim aided by Scott Sands of Sands and Associates allowed the man to receive $2.1 million for his debilitating injuries.

As a Virginia-based FELA attorney representing primarily employees of Norfolk Southern and CSX, I congratulate my fellow railroad worker injury plaintiff’s attorney for helping their clients receive compensation for their on-the-job injuries. I am also not surprised that both BNSF and Belt used flatly unbelievable defense in order to deny liability and shift blame to the injured employees.

For instance, BNSF argued that the switchman should not have operated the switch — that is, should not have done his job — because the man had heard the particular switch was difficult to operate. This argument is contradicted by the FELA law, which abolishes the defense of assumption of the risk,. What this means for rail workers is that if the railroad orders you to do a job, then the company is solely responsible for any resulting injuries from doing that job.

For its part, Belt said the malfunctioning switch couldn’t have hurt its employee because the man already had back problems. Every company in the railroad industry knows the danger of poorly working switches posing a risk of injury to the trainmen, conductors or engineers  who much throw the switches. Additionally, switches are heavy, awkward machines even when properly maintained. The known hazard for back injury caused the companies to replace the old style of switch with  safer bow handled equipment in many yards.

Railroads must protect the health and lives of their workers. When rail companies fail to meet this duty, they must be held accountable. I’m glad that happened in these two cases.

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

In a July 20, 2011, conference call, top CSX officials reported record profits while glossing over the deaths of three company employees and injuries to dozens of other rail workers during the second fiscal quarter of its fiscal year.

Within two minutes, CSX Chairman, President and CEO Michael J. Ward announced, “Operating income [profit on more than $3 billion in revenue] was up 21 percent to a record $926 million.” Well after that, David A. Brown, CSX’s chief operating officer, noted, “We were deeply saddened by the loss of three employees.” A slide shown while Brown was speaking indicated that CSX had a personal injury rate of 0.89 and a train accident rate of 2.37.

Brown did not explain what those rates meant, but the Federal Railroad Administration typically records injuries and accidents as a percentage of incidents per million miles traveled. FRA data show that, in real numbers, CSX saw 80 train accidents through June 15 in 2011. The most serious of those occurred in Union City, North (NC), on May 24. A locomotive engineer and a conductor died when two freight trains collided. Two other train crew members suffered injuries.

Another CSX worker lost his life in a Waycross, Georgia (GA), rail yard on April 29. One of the company’s rail cars turned over onto the man’s pickup truck.

CSX has some justification for pointing to quarter-to-quarter decreases and a general downward trend in on-the-job injuries for it rail workers, but the corporate executives’ performance in the most recent call to investors shows that they prize profits over protection of workers. This attitude appears to be shared across the railroad injury. Safety is claimed as a core mission and value, but spending on preventing accidents and limiting exposures to toxic substances always seems to take a back seat to using money taken in to take in more money.

Working in Virginia Beach, VA, as a FELA attorney — minutes from rail terminals in Norfolk and Newport News that receive and discharge dozens of Norfolk Southern and CSX trains each week — I know rail employees will never face zero risks to life and limb. But I would welcome a presentation to railroad investors in which a rail company stated it had taken significant charges against quarterly or yearly profits specifically to upgrade its safety equipment and procedures.

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 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.