Railroad Workers and Asbestos: FELA Claims in New York

Railroad work runs on a different set of legal rules than almost any other job in America — and that matters enormously if you worked the rails and were later diagnosed with an asbestos disease. If you spent your career with the Long Island Rail Road or any other railroad — as a machinist, boilermaker, pipefitter, carman, electrician, signal maintainer, engineer, trackman, or shop worker — you almost certainly worked around asbestos, and a special federal law gives you rights that other workers do not have. If you have been diagnosed with mesothelioma, lung cancer, or asbestosis, you may be entitled to significant compensation under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act.

The Law Offices of Rudolph F.X. Migliore, P.C. has represented asbestos victims for more than three decades, recovering compensation in over 1,200 asbestos cases and more than 100 lung cancer cases alongside a national network of asbestos co-counsel. We are based in Commack and represent railroad workers and their families throughout New York State. The evaluation is free — and if you smoked, you are not automatically disqualified.

FELA: Why Railroad Claims Are Different

Most workers who get sick from their jobs are covered by no-fault workers’ compensation — a system that pays a set schedule of benefits regardless of who was at fault, but that also bars the worker from suing the employer. Railroad workers are different. In 1908, Congress passed the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, known as FELA, which gives railroad employees the right to sue their railroad directly for injuries and illnesses caused by the railroad’s negligence. The trade-off is real: under FELA you must prove the railroad was negligent — that it failed to provide a reasonably safe workplace — but if you do, you can recover traditional personal-injury damages — including pain and suffering, lost earnings, and other proven losses — subject to proof, the railroad’s defenses, and any comparative negligence reduction, rather than a capped benefit schedule. FELA generally applies to employees of covered rail carriers, not every contractor, vendor, or non-rail transit worker, so the worker’s employer, job duties, and railroad relationship matter.

Several features of FELA work strongly in an injured worker’s favor. The causation standard is famously low — a railroad is liable if its negligence played any part, however slight, in causing the illness, a standard the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed. FELA uses comparative negligence, which means that even if your own conduct contributed to your exposure, your recovery is reduced by your share of fault but is not barred entirely. And a railroad can be held responsible for the negligence of your coworkers, not just its own direct decisions. These rules make FELA a powerful tool — in the hands of counsel who knows how to use it.

How Railroad Workers Were Exposed to Asbestos

From the 1930s into the 1980s, asbestos was woven through nearly every part of rail operations. The steam-locomotive era was the worst: boilers, fireboxes, steam lines, and piping were heavily insulated with asbestos lagging, and the workers who built, maintained, and especially scrapped those locomotives breathed enormous quantities of fiber. But exposure did not end with steam. Asbestos was used in brake shoes and brake linings, in gaskets that workers routinely cut to size by hand (releasing fibers with every cut), in the insulation and floor and ceiling materials of passenger cars, and throughout the shops, roundhouses, and rail-yard buildings where the work was done. Even after the shift to diesel, brake work and aging building materials kept the exposure going.

The Railroad Jobs Most at Risk

Asbestos disease among railroad workers cuts across job classifications. The occupations seen most often in railroad asbestos litigation include machinists and locomotive mechanics, boilermakers, pipefitters and steamfitters, carmen and car repairers (who serviced brakes and insulated equipment in enclosed shops), electricians, signal maintainers (who drilled and serviced asbestos-containing signal equipment along the tracks), sheet-metal workers, laborers and shop workers, and even engineers, firemen, and trainmen who rode in and worked around asbestos-insulated cabs and cars. On the Long Island Rail Road and the other railroads serving New York, generations of these workers spent careers around the material.

The Long Island Rail Road and New York’s Rail History

The Long Island Rail Road is one of the busiest commuter railroads in the country and has employed Long Islanders for well over a century — in its shops, yards, maintenance facilities, and along its lines. Like every railroad of its era, it ran on equipment and in buildings that contained asbestos. Railroad workers across New York — on the LIRR and the freight and passenger lines that crossed the state — share the same exposure history, and FELA covers them all, because it applies to railroads engaged in interstate commerce. Wherever in New York you worked the rails, we can help you evaluate a claim.

Railroad Workers, Lung Cancer — and Smoking

Many railroaders smoked. If you have lung cancer and assume smoking ends your claim — it does not automatically. Asbestos and tobacco smoke multiply each other’s risk, and a FELA claim turns on whether the railroad’s negligence and your asbestos exposure contributed to the disease, not whether smoking also played a role. Because FELA uses comparative negligence, smoking may be raised by the railroad to reduce an award, but it does not bar recovery, and an extensive smoking history does not automatically disqualify you. We have successfully represented many clients who smoked. Here is how that works.

FELA Claims, Lawsuits, and Trust Funds Together

A FELA claim against the railroad is often only one part of a railroad worker’s recovery. Many railroaders were also exposed to asbestos products made by outside manufacturers — the insulation, gasket, and brake makers — and can pursue product-liability lawsuits against those companies and claims against asbestos bankruptcy trust funds at the same time as a FELA claim. A complete strategy uses every available path. Learn more about how asbestos trust fund claims work.

One point on timing that railroad workers should understand: FELA has its own deadline, generally three years from when the claim accrues. In occupational disease cases, that is often tied to when the worker knew or reasonably should have known of the disease and its possible work-related cause — often around diagnosis — but the exact date can be fact-specific, and it is generally not the long-ago end of your railroad employment. Because that window is firm and the rules are specific to your situation, anyone recently diagnosed should seek a prompt legal evaluation rather than assume it is too late. You do not need records, product names, or proof of negligence in hand to start — reconstructing the work history and the railroad’s knowledge is what we do, drawing on employment and union records, co-worker testimony, and decades of evidence developed in railroad asbestos litigation.

The first step is a conversation about where and when you worked the rails. Call 631-543-3663 — the evaluation is free and confidential. For the bigger picture, see our Long Island asbestos lawyer page and our guide to lung cancer caused by asbestos. Many railroad shop workers shared the same trades and exposures as other building and mechanical trades, and Navy service added asbestos exposure for many: see our page on Navy veterans’ asbestos claims.

Frequently Asked Questions: Railroad Worker Asbestos Claims

Speak With a New York Asbestos and FELA Lawyer

Three decades of asbestos litigation, 1,200+ cases, and a free, confidential evaluation for railroad workers and their families — statewide, from a Long Island firm. Call 631-543-3663 or use the contact form below. There is no fee unless we recover compensation for you.