Practice Areas

• Personal Injury Law for Tidewater Virginia and Virginia Beach
• Truck and Tractor Trailer Accidents
• Nationwide FELA Representation for Railroaders
• Legal Help in Virginia for Burn Survivors
• Slips and Falls
• Brain Injury
• Amputation & Dismemberment Injuries
• Arm & Shoulder Injuries
• Pedestrian and Bicycling Injuries
• Ankle and Knee Injuries

Q: As a railroad worker, I have heard about the FELA, but exactly what is it?

A: It is how railroad workers in this country recover compensation for on the job injuries, and it allows the worker to bring a lawsuit in either state or federal court and have a jury decide what is fair compensation. As one United States Supreme Court justice put it, the FELA was "designed to put upon the railroad industry some of the costs for legs, eyes, arms, and lives which it consumed in its operations." The FELA is short for The Federal Employer's Liability Act, enacted by Congress in 1908 to allow railroad employees to recover damages when they are injured on the job. Unlike most state worker's compensation programs, which are generally no-fault in nature, under the FELA, an injured railroad worker must be able to show that the company was negligent, or at fault, and that the negligence played some part in causing the injury.

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Questions

Common Railroad Injury Questions

• What if I was also at fault for my injury, am I out of luck?
• What do I have to prove under the FELA in order to be compensated?
• If I'm injured on the job, what do I recover?

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Helpful Links

• Other Resources
• Transocean rig explosion