FELA Explained: The Law That Replaces Workers’ Comp for Railroaders

If you work for a railroad and get hurt on the job, you do not file a workers’ compensation claim. You have something different — and in most cases far more powerful — under a 1908 federal law called the Federal Employers’ Liability Act. Here is how FELA works, why Congress wrote it, and what it means for the value of your claim.

Why railroaders have their own injury law

Railroading was one of the most dangerous jobs in America when FELA was passed in 1908. Workers were routinely killed and maimed coupling cars and riding the rails, and common-law defenses left their families with nothing. Congress responded by giving railroad employees a federal negligence claim against their employers — and by stripping away the harsh defenses that had blocked recovery. When state workers’ compensation systems later swept in for most industries, railroad workers were deliberately left under FELA.

FELA vs. workers’ compensation: the core trade-off

The practical difference comes down to fault for benefits:

Because FELA allows the full spectrum of tort damages, successful FELA recoveries are frequently several times what the same injury would yield under workers’ comp. That is the engine behind the settlement tiers in our settlement averages guide.

The “featherweight” causation standard

FELA’s defining feature is how little causation a worker must prove. The Supreme Court held in Rogers v. Missouri Pacific R. Co. (1957) that a railroad is liable if its negligence played any part, even the slightest, in producing the injury. Lawyers call this the “featherweight” or “relaxed” standard. It is dramatically easier to meet than the “substantial factor” test in ordinary negligence cases, and it is the reason well-documented FELA claims so often resolve in the worker’s favor.

What counts as railroad negligence

• Unsafe or defective equipment, tools, or locomotives
• Inadequate training, staffing, or supervision
• Failure to enforce the railroad’s own safety rules
• Unsafe track, ballast, walkways, or work conditions
• Toxic exposure (diesel exhaust, asbestos, benzene, silica) over a career
• Violation of a federal safety statute — see below

Safety-statute violations: negligence per se

FELA gets even stronger when the railroad violated a federal safety law such as the Safety Appliance Act or the Locomotive Inspection Act. If a defective coupler, brake, or locomotive part contributed to your injury, the railroad is liable without you having to prove ordinary negligence, and under §53 your own contributory fault is not counted against you at all. These cases are among the most valuable FELA claims.

Comparative fault under FELA (45 U.S.C. §53)

FELA uses pure comparative negligence. If a jury finds you 30% responsible, your award is reduced by 30% — but you still recover the other 70%. There is no threshold that wipes out your claim, unlike the “51% bar” in many state injury laws. Our calculator applies this rule directly so you can see the effect of partial fault.

What FELA damages can include

• Past and future medical expenses
• Lost wages and lost future earning capacity
• Pain, suffering, and mental anguish
• Permanent disability and disfigurement
• Loss of enjoyment of life
• Wrongful-death damages for a worker’s family

Reviewed by the TrainAccidentLawyer.us editorial team

Published by Mustafa Bilgic. Our guides are written for general education and fact-checked against primary U.S. sources — the Federal Railroad Administration, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the text of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (45 U.S.C. §§51–60). We cite institutions, not anonymous “experts.” This page is informational and is not legal advice.