By Rick Shapiro, Railroad Accident Attorney in Virginia

The intense fire and evacuation of the small town of Tiskilwa, Illinois (IL), after an Iowa Interstate Railroad freight train hauling ethanol for Archer Daniels Midlands derailed made national news in early October 2011. While attention-grabbing video of the conflagration faded from television and computer screens within 24 hours, the environmental impacts of the accident are likely to persist for years.

Not all the ethanol was destroyed in the fire — to say nothing of any spilled oil, diesel fuel or chemicals used by firefighters to suppress the flames. As a result, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency is asking Iowa Interstate to fund the installation of wells and testing equipment to ensure that the quality of water in nearby creeks has not been compromised. The state’s EPA has also asked the Illinois attorney general to order the railroad to pay for cleaning up the soil around the area of the wreck.

Of particular concern are two chemical components of ethanol fuel, ethyl acetate and 1,1-diethoxyethane. Both of the substances can cause irritation to people’s skin and lungs, and large exposures to 1,1-diethoxyethane fumes can cause suffocation. The effects of the chemicals on fish, birds and other wildlife are similar but most likely to be heightened because of the animals’ small size and constant exposure to the chemicals in the places where they live.

News reports of the ethanol train derailment all repeat some version of the statement “No deaths or injuries occurred as a result of the incident.” What that sentence means is that no residents of  Tiskilwa got hurt. I’ve yet to see any mention of whether the engineer, conductor or other member of the train crew suffered injuries, which is a likely occurrence any time a locomotive or string of rail cars derails.

As a FELA plaintiff’s attorney based in Virginia (VA), I devote much of my practice to helping railroad workers or their surviving family members receive compensation from rail companies whose negligence caused the employees to develop diseases due to exposure to harmful chemicals. The short- and long-term health risks from a derailment and fire like the one in Illinois are almost incalculable. I hope Iowa Interstate Railroad will meet its responsibility to pay for the needed environmental cleanup and monitoring, Doing so will help prevent greater problems 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 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 Rick Shapiro, VA Railroad Injury Attorney

My colleague John Cooper has posted a new blog to our Virginia personal injury attorneys’ website about proposed federal cuts to Amtrak that could result in a 60 percent reduction in funding to Virginia’s rail services. The cut raises concern that safety could also be sacrificed on Virginia’s railroads.

DM

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 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 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.

By Rick Shapiro, Railroad Accident Injury Attorney

In his latest post to our Virginia personal injury attorneys’ website, my colleague Randy Appleton writes about a serious accident in New York in which two CSX trains collided. In this case two people were injured. Fortunately, the injuries were not serious.

DM

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.

On June 23, 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in CSX Transportation v. McBride that railroad companies could be held liable for any employee’s injury, illness or death that was caused by even the smallest amount of negligence by the railroad. The 5-4 decision written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg upholds a century of legal precedence in Federal Employers’ Liability Act jurisprudence. In a post to our firm’s Norfolk Injuryboard, my FELA plaintiff’s attorney colleague Rick Shapiro calls the High Court’s decision “a big win for all men and women who work in rail yards and on trains and tracks.”

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.