Were you injured in a railroad accident? Don’t make these mistakes and ruin your claim. Call our Naperville attorneys for a free consultation
Choosing a Railroad Accident Lawyer
When deciding what FELA or railroad injury accident lawyer you’re going to hire in the state of Illinois, the first thing you’re going to want to consider is what the person’s experience is. The lawyers that represent injured railroad workers are few and far between.
In the state of Illinois, there are very few lawyers that specialize or handle railroad injury type cases. The people that work for the railroad have different job titles than the rest of the public, they have different job duties and responsibilities that are basically unknown or uncommon to the rest of the public, so when you’re deciding what type of lawyer or what lawyer to hire, if you work for the railroad and you’ve been injured, it’s important to ask, number one, if they’ve represented injured railroad workers in the past. That is the key question to ask any lawyer in deciding who to hire.
If you have any questions about your on-the-job injury while working for the railroad, please give us a call. We’d be happy to answer any questions that you have.
Settlement Timeline
In Illinois, and basically across the entire United States, you have a three-year limitation to bring an injury case as a result of being injured working for a railroad. The problem with waiting that period of time is normally, if you delay in notifying the railroad, they will immediately bring you up on disciplinary charges and move towards trying to get you fired for failure to report an on-the-job injury. Even though you may have three years to pursue a claim, by no means would you want to wait that long.
If you find yourself injured while working for the railroad, you should give notice immediately and contact a lawyer who’s familiar with and has experience in dealing with the railroads. If you have any questions, we’d be happy to answer them. Please give us a call.
Insurance Investigation
When a railroad worker reports an injury, there are a lot of different steps that are taken either by the claims manager or anyone trying to represent or defend the railroad. It’s not uncommon for us to hear about railroad workers being asked to perform reenactments, to go out and agree to take photographs basically reenacting how they were injured. It’s not uncommon for us to hear about different parts or things on the railroad that disappear because either a claims manager or someone in a supervisory role has changed or altered the scene.
Anytime you’re injured, it is important to report it. If you have a camera that’s available, take pictures of any of the conditions that you see. Call your union steward, if you have one. If you are able to, you need to call the union steward to make sure that you’re being protected as called for in your labor agreement. Oftentimes they will try to take recorded statements from you, try to get you to do a reenactment or even threaten to bring you up on charges if you don’t cooperate.
After you’ve called your union steward, you should call a lawyer. You need to call a lawyer that has experience handling railroad workers’ injury cases. If you have any questions about a situation you may find yourself in, please give us a call. We’d be happy to answer any questions that you have.
Were you injured in a railroad accident? Don’t make these mistakes and ruin your injury claim. Contact our experienced Naperville railroad accident attorneys today for a free consultation and case evaluation.
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