Railroad cancer and FELA, in brief
If you spent years in a rail yard, a shop, or a locomotive cab and then got a cancer diagnosis, it's natural to wonder whether the job played a part, and whether the railroad should answer for it in a railroad cancer lawsuit. Federal law lets a rail worker, or the family of a worker who has died, hold the railroad responsible for an illness its carelessness helped cause.
The legal foundation is FELA, a federal statute dating to 1908, which holds a railroad accountable whenever its negligence contributed even slightly to a worker's injury or disease. Negligence just means the railroad did not use reasonable care. The deadline is tight: a claim must be filed within three years of when you knew, or should have known, that the illness may be tied to work, so it is wise to ask for a free claim review as soon as your doctor raises a possible connection.
Railroad cancer lawsuit settlements and verdicts
Most FELA cancer claims end in a settlement, and the amounts are not made public. These public court records list the awards juries gave railroad workers and their families.
| Case | Railroad | Illness | What the jury awarded |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cancer diagnosed | |||
| Redford v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co., Virginia state court, 2025 |  Norfolk Southern | Acute myeloid leukemia, after diesel exhaust | $21.8 million jury verdict The jury found him 52% at fault because of his smoking, and under FELA the award gets cut by that part. |
| Payne v. CSX Transportation, Tennessee Supreme Court, 2015 |  CSX | Lung cancer | $8.6 million jury verdict Next, the jury cut the amount to $3.2 million. The Tennessee Supreme Court upheld the ruling against CSX but sent the amount back for a new trial. |
| Kemper v. BNSF Railway Co., Kansas Court of Appeals, 2026 |  BNSF | Mesothelioma, after asbestos | $1.5 million jury verdict, upheld On appeal, the award stood, but the court subtracted the $649,490 that the VA and asbestos trusts had already paid his family. |
| Fear of cancer, with no cancer diagnosis | |||
| CSX Transportation v. Hensley, 2009 | CSX | Asbestosis and fear of cancer | $5 million (sent back for a new instruction) |
| Norfolk & Western v. Ayers, 2003 | Norfolk & Western (now Norfolk Southern) | Asbestosis and fear of cancer | $770,000 to $1.2 million per worker, upheld |
In Hensley, no one told the jury what the law requires for fear of cancer, so the Supreme Court sent the award back.
What counts as railroad cancer?
A claim can rest on any cancer that railroad work helped bring about, not only on injuries from an accident. In 1949 the Supreme Court said FELA covers illnesses that build up slowly from work, like silicosis (lung damage from dust), just as it covers a broken bone.
Diesel exhaust is a known cause of lung cancer in humans. The World Health Organization's cancer agency put diesel engine exhaust in its top category of known human cancer causes, and its experts agreed unanimously that it causes lung cancer. By 1959 the railroads had gone almost fully diesel, and researchers tracked lung cancer deaths among nearly 55,000 railroad workers over 38 years.
Some claims involve asbestos, which has a long commercial history in North America dating to the late 1800s, or benzene, a solvent also found in gasoline. Bladder cancer claims have reached the courts too, among them a New Jersey case brought by a car inspector and locomotive mechanic who said work exposures, including diesel exhaust, caused his cancer.
Starting a FELA cancer claim
Railroad workers are different from most American workers: the usual state system for on-the-job injuries does not cover them, so they claim their losses directly from the railroad under FELA, the Federal Employers' Liability Act. That opens the door to compensation for medical bills, wages already missed, earnings that will be lost down the road, and pain and suffering.
You also don't have to prove as much about cause as you would in an ordinary injury case. A jury hears the case when railroad carelessness played any part, even the slightest in bringing on the illness, and it makes no difference that smoking or some other cause may have contributed as well. In 2011 the Supreme Court confirmed that a railroad worker has less to prove about what caused the illness than in most other injury cases.
Even if you were partly to blame, you can still win; the jury lowers the award to match your share of fault. The railroad also cannot say you accepted the risks by taking the job once its own carelessness played a part. Fellow workers can talk openly about what they saw, since any railroad rule or contract meant to keep them quiet is void.
When a worker has died, the personal representative of the estate takes over the claim for the benefit of the worker's spouse and children. A free claim review can help a surviving family learn where they stand.
FELA cancer claims and the three-year filing window
The illness tends to surface years after the exposure happened, often once the worker has already left the railroad. Most work-related cancers never show up in the injury reports railroads file with the Federal Railroad Administration, so a missing report does not mean there is no claim.
The three-year period does not begin on the final day of exposure. It runs from when you knew, or should have known, that your illness might be tied to work, not necessarily when a doctor confirmed the link. The case may then be brought in federal or state court.
A New Jersey case shows the price of delay. The worker learned of his diagnosis in May 2014; at that point, his doctor said the cancer was connected to what he had breathed on the job, yet he waited until April 2019 to file. In January 2026 a higher court agreed that he had waited too long to claim for the cancer he was told about in 2014. He also said diesel fumes he breathed after the diagnosis made his cancer worse. The first court said that part could count if it fell within the three years, but the appeals court still threw out the case. Your three years may already be running, so call today for a free FELA claim review.
Inside the free claim review call
The phone number and the short form both connect you with a law firm that represents railroad workers in FELA claims, and the review is free. The reviewer will ask which railroads employed you and during which years, what job titles you held, which yards, shops, or lines you worked, what your diagnosis is, and when a doctor first said it might be work-related.
Your call may be recorded so the firm can keep a precise account of your work history, which is important because the exposures can stretch back decades. Rail workers are filing these claims right now: close to 100 suits targeting Norfolk Southern have been filed in Philadelphia, and over 30 have come from former Union Pacific employees over the Roseville yard. Call today for a free FELA claim review with a law firm that handles railroad workers' claims, even before a doctor links it to work.
