Steve Young

Designated Legal Counsel

WORKER VICTORY

January 24, 2012

A Fort Worth Jury returned a $2.7 million verdict today in favor of an injured conductor against the BNSF railroad.

Attorneys representing the injured plaintiff, Anthony Petru from Oakland, California and Steve Young from Houston, Texas argued their client, a conductor suffered injuries at the hands of a co-worker (locomotive engineer) from the mishandling of locomotives and rail cars during a switching move in Arizona. They argued the BNSF management had prior warnings from employees and lower level management of the potential risk of injury to personnel and/or public if action wasn’t taken with this co-worker, but chose to ignore. Reports of unacceptable behavior spanned a lengthy period of time, seven incidents in 10 years, with one for threatening to shoot a manager. The attorneys argued BNSF upper management made no attempt to rectify the situation or even acknowledge there was a problem, which directly led to her injuries. Injuries that required multiple back surgeries and would prevent her return to the physically demanding job as a conductor.

Attorneys representing the BNSF Railroad argued the engineer had acted intentionally to hurt the conductor and the engineer actions were not negligent.

Following a two week trial, the jury found that the BNSF was negligent and awarded the injured worker over 2.7 million.