What Makes Railroad Injury Cases Often $1 Million Plus Payouts

There are several reasons why FELA cases on behalf of injured railroad workers are often resolved by settlement or a jury verdict with extremely high amounts of money.

One of the reasons that railroad workers often recover lots in compensation when they get hurt on the job is that the railroad worker occupations are extremely dangerous.  Often the injury to an engineer, conductor, brakeman, trackman, carman or signalman can be catastrophic.

It is not unusual for men to be killed working on the railroad or to have a limb such as an arm or a leg cut off leaving them as amputees.  Obviously when an extreme injury like having your leg cut off occurs the amount of compensation necessary to try to address the harms and losses has to be a very high amount of money.  The weight of railroad equipment in the hundreds of thousands of pounds means that if you get hit by a car or a locomotive, there’s going to be some major physical injury.

The other reason that personal injury cases involving injured railroad workers often result in high verdicts and settlements has to do with lost wages.  Because the railroad work is so dangerous and physically demanding, railroad workers earn a good living for their long hours.  Often railroad workers, whether a maintenance away crew or an on-the-road transportation crew have to be away from their families for days or longer at a time.  They earn good money, better than most blue collar jobs, as part of their union pay package.

So if you injure a worker and cause him to lose his job on the railroad you have caused a serious economic harm to him and his family.  For example if a railroad engineer is earning $90,000.00 a year and he gets hurt in a way that causes him to need a back surgery and he can no longer lift the up to a 100 pounds necessary to do his job then he is going to lose the value of his earnings for the rest of his work life.

This can add up to some very big figures.  If the railroad worker was 50 at the time he got hurt, you’re talking about 15 years to age 65 at $90,000.00 a year plus benefits.

That’s over $1,300,000.00 in economic losses before you even talk about the pain and suffering, inconvenience and other losses associated with having a man knocked out of his career.

Because of the high economic losses and the likelihood of serious physical injury in railroad worker accidents these cases are often high stakes.  That is an important reason to hire an experienced and specialized Virginia and North Carolina FELA law personal injury attorney who has been handling railroad injury cases for many years to make sure that these large cases come out correctly.

The Norfolk, Virginia Beach and Hampton based railroad injury/FELA law firm, Cooper Hurley, handles railroad worker’s injuries and injuries on rail crossings as well as automobile, truck, and motorcycle injuries and slip and fall cases, wrongful death and medical malpractice.  John Cooper and Jim Hurley have over 40 years of combined experience in handling catastrophic injury claims.  Attorney John Cooper has been named to Virginia “Super Lawyers” since 2010.
Cooper Hurley represents families who have lost a loved one through another party’s fault in Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News and throughout VA, and north eastern North Carolina. We always put the best interests of our clients first. The firm is recognized by other lawyers as “AV” by Martindale-Hubbell, a national attorney rating service, for our top level of legal skill and highest ethical standards. If you need help or advice about a serious injury, please call us or contact us through this website.