Most American workers hurt on the job use no-fault workers’ compensation. Railroad employees are the major exception: since 1908 they have recovered under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA), 45 U.S.C. §§51–60. FELA can be far more generous than comp — it pays full lost earnings and pain and suffering — but only if you prove the railroad was at least partly negligent. This calculator shows how a FELA recovery is assembled so a railroad claim agent’s early offer cannot anchor you too low.
How a FELA recovery is built
A FELA award has the same two damage buckets as any injury case, but with railroad-specific rules layered on top:
- Economic damages — past and future medical care, past lost wages, and lost future earning capacity (including lost fringe benefits and railroad-retirement contributions). These are documented and hard to dispute.
- Non-economic damages — pain, suffering, disfigurement, mental anguish and loss of life’s enjoyment. FELA pays these in full; workers’ comp pays nothing for them. Because there is no receipt for pain, this tool estimates it as a multiple of economic loss.
The gross is then cut by your share of fault and, finally, by the attorney’s fee and any liens (for example a Railroad Employees National Health and Welfare Plan or Railroad Retirement Board offset). To model fees and lien negotiation in more detail, use the net-recovery calculator and the lien-reduction estimator.
The featherweight causation standard
FELA’s most powerful feature is its causation bar. In Rogers v. Missouri Pacific Railroad Co., 352 U.S. 500 (1957), the U.S. Supreme Court held that a railroad is liable if its negligence played any part, even the slightest, in producing the injury. Lawyers call this “featherweight” causation. It is a much lower hurdle than the “proximate cause” ordinary negligence cases demand, and it is one reason a skilled FELA attorney can prevail where a general personal-injury lawyer might not.
Pure comparative fault — the FELA twist
Under 45 U.S.C. §53, FELA uses pure comparative negligence. If a jury finds you 30% at fault, your recovery is reduced by 30% — but unlike the “modified” 50%/51% bars in many state injury cases, your FELA claim is never wiped out by your own fault. Two further rules favor workers: 45 U.S.C. §54 abolishes the old “assumption of risk” defense, and if the railroad violated a safety statute such as the Safety Appliance Act or the Locomotive Inspection Act, your contributory fault is removed entirely and the damages are not reduced at all. Set your fault slider to 0 to model that situation.
Worked example
Suppose a conductor suffers a shoulder injury requiring surgery. Past medical bills are $85,000, future care $40,000, past lost wages $55,000, and a vocational expert estimates $120,000 in lost future earning capacity — $300,000 in economic damages. With a 3× multiplier for a serious lasting injury, pain and suffering adds $900,000, for a $1.2 million gross. If the jury assigns the worker 10% fault, recovery falls to $1.08 million. A 25% attorney fee ($270,000) leaves roughly $810,000 before any liens. Change the inputs above to see how sensitive the number is to the multiplier and the fault share — that sensitivity is exactly why early lowball offers are so common.
What the estimate cannot capture
This tool does not know your venue’s jury tendencies, the strength of your liability proof, pre-existing conditions, or whether a safety-statute violation removes your fault. It also cannot predict how a railroad’s defense team will fight causation. Treat the figure as a conversation starter for a free consultation with a genuine FELA practitioner, not a target. Learn the differences first in our guides to FELA for railroad workers and FELA vs. workers’ compensation, and confirm your filing window with the 3-year FELA deadline calculator.
Frequently asked questions
Why don’t railroad workers use workers’ compensation?
Railroad employees engaged in interstate commerce are excluded from state workers’ comp. Instead Congress gave them FELA (45 U.S.C. §§51–60) in 1908. FELA is fault-based rather than no-fault, but it pays the full range of damages including pain and suffering, which comp does not.
Does my own fault stop me from recovering under FELA?
No. FELA uses pure comparative negligence (45 U.S.C. §53): your award is reduced by your percentage of fault but is never barred, even if you are mostly at fault. And if the railroad violated a federal safety statute, your fault is disregarded entirely.
What attorney fee is typical in a FELA case?
FELA contingency fees are often around 25%, lower than the 33–40% common in many personal-injury cases, partly because of union-referred counsel and the volume of railroad work some firms handle. The fee is negotiable and set in your written agreement.
