Texas Court Affirms $1.9 Million Jury Verdict Against Railroad for Worker’s Cumulative Spinal Injuries

Following a trial, a jury returned a verdict of $1.9 million against a railroad for negligence under the Federal Employers Liability Act (“FELA”) and for violation of the Locomotive Inspection Act on claims brought by an employee who worked for the railroad for 20 years but had been advised by a neurologist to stop working because of deterioration of his spinal health.  The plaintiff alleged his injuries were caused by the “jolts, shocks, vibrations, and cumulative trauma … due to defective equipment, including … rough riding locomotives, locomotive cab seats that failed to protect [him] from long-term exposure to vibratory forces, and poorly maintained equipment.”  The railroad appealed the verdict challenging the sufficiency of the supporting evidence, the trial court’s exclusion of certain evidence, and the jury charge, but the Court of Appeals of Texas affirmed the verdict yesterday.

The railroad argued on appeal that the evidence was legally insufficient to support the jury’s finding that the worker filed his FELA claims within three years from the day his cause of action accrued.  Notwithstanding the dissenting opinion’s focus on evidence demonstrating that the worker had received treatment for his injuries as early as eight years previously, the court’s majority concluded that the worker reasonably did not realize that his job caused the debilitating injuries until much later and there was some evidence to support the jury’s finding that this occurred within the statute of limitations, which was enough to affirm the verdict.  The majority also rejected the railroad’s argument that the plaintiff’s expert’s failure to prove the worker was exposed to body vibrations greater than or comparable to those people in the studies the expert reviewed was problematic, for there is no known dose or exposure level at which injury results in these types of cases and because the railroad’s reliance on toxic tort law cases was not analogous to a whole body vibration case.