Legal Updates

Despite increasing courthouse shutdowns as we approach 2021, Davis, Saunders & Miller is committed to moving our clients’ cases forward.  Through Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Teleconferencing, we are setting mediations and settlement conferences and helping our clients resolve their cases for fair and full value.  To our past, current, and prospective clients, DSM is fully staffed and available for socially …

Practice Point:  If you are injured working on the railroad, you are not covered under State Workers’ Compensation Laws.  When most people go to a medical provider, they are asked:  “Did this injury happen at work?”  The medical provider then will not allow treatment until it is approved through the workers’ compensation case manager. As a result, treatment for a …

Practice Point:  DSM will be adding to our Legal Updates periodic Practice Points.  Today, we start with the essential basics.  Whether you are injured at work at the railroad or injured in a car accident, the information you provide in a written statement is critical.  By the time your legal case begins, many of the facts will have been committed …

Davis, Saunders, & Miller is pleased to congratulate our attorneys, Benjamin Saunders and Joseph Miller, for being recognized as  “TOP LAWYERS” by New Orleans Magazine in the field of Railroad Law!   https://www.myneworleans.com/2020-top-lawyers/

Settlement agreement language in FELA cases can be tricky. It’s common for a railroad worker to suffer a specific on-duty injury and settle his/her FELA case. Then, years later the worker finds out s/he has an unrelated occupational illness because of exposure to harmful chemicals like asbestos, silica, and diesel fumes. In any FELA settlement, the railroad usually insists that …

Davis, Saunders & Miller Law Firm is pleased to announce that Joe Miller has been appointed by the Academy of Rail Labor Attorneys [“ARLA”] to serve on the organization’s Trial Skills Committee. The goal of this Committee is to create a program that elevates the trial skills of ARLA members in their litigation practices representing railroad workers nationwide. Joe has …

This week the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Labor, ordered CSX Transportation Inc. to pay in excess of $95,000.00 in back wages and reinstate an employee fired by the company for reporting an on-duty injury and an unsafe gate. OSHA also ordered the railroad to pay $75,000.00 in punitive damages, $27,000.00 in compensatory damages, …

This week the United States Supreme Court denied a Petition for Certiorari in a very important case that affects all railroad workers nationwide. SCOTUS denied hearing the appeal of Ammons v. Wisconsin Central Ltd. from the Illinois Supreme Court. There, the Illinois Supreme Court upheld the railroad’s efforts to counter sue its own injured employee for property damage in the …