Federal Rail Safety Act Subsection (c)(1) prohibits railroads from denying, delaying, or interfering with an employee’s right to prompt medical treatment for a workplace injury. In Santiago v. Metro North Railroad, the ARB held the scope of (c)(1)’s prohibition was not limited to the immediate aftermath of a workplace injury. Now, in Wever v. Montana Rail Link, the ARB overrules Santiago and limits the scope of (c)(1) protection to the temporal period immediately…

How bad is the safety culture at the MBTA? So bad the Chief Safety Officer was terminated for demanding correction of critical safety issues. And had to file a whistleblower retaliation complaint to set things right. The National Transit Systems Security Act (NTSSA) is a federal whistleblower protection statute that prohibits transit authorities such as the MBTA from retaliating in any way against employees who raise safety concerns and cooperate with safety investigations by the…

A Circuit Court has clarified when the doctrine of equitable tolling applies to FRSA Section 20109 time limitations. In Sparre v. United States Dep’t of Labor, the 7th Circuit confirms the FRSA’s various time limitations for filing or appealing are not jurisdictional and therefore are subject to equitable tolling. However, the Court warns such tolling “is granted sparingly only when extraordinary circumstances far beyond the litigant’s control prevented timely filing.” Here are the four…

Did you know that rail workers who refuse to violate the Hours of Service Act are protected by Section 20109 of the FRSA? The Norfolk Southern Railway just found out the hard way. In Lancaster v. Norfolk Southern Railway Company, the NS required a locomotive engineer to continued writing a statement beyond the time he outlawed. When he refused to violate the HSA by continuing to write the statement beyond his HSA deadline,…

We all know that “reporting in good faith a hazardous safety condition” is protected activity under Section 20109 of the FRSA. But what does “good faith” mean? Is it just the employee’s subjective belief, or must it also be objectively reasonable? The cases are tending toward requiring both, and March v. Metro North Railroad is a recent example. There, the district judge found FRSA Section (b)(1)((A) requires both a subjective and objectively reasonable belief…

When can a $13,000 FELA injury turn into a $3.2 million Judgment against a railroad? Answer: When the railroad violates the Federal Rail Safety Act. Wooten v. BNSF Railway is yet another demonstration of the transformative power of Section 20109’s whistleblower protections. When Zachary Wooten reported a wrist injury, BNSF accused him of dishonesty and fired him. The jury decided to send a message BNSF will never forget: $1.4 million in front pay, $500,000…

Another Circuit Court has corrected the 8th Circuit’s misuse of the term “intentional retaliation” in FRSA litigation. In Frost v. BNSF Railway Company, the 9th Circuit soundly rejects the suggestion in Kuduk v. BNSF that Section 20109 requires proof of discriminatory animus separate from a showing that the employee’s protected activity was a contributing factor to the adverse action: What BNSF misses is that the only proof of discriminatory intent that a plaintiff is…