What is Repetitive Stress Syndrome?

Repetitive Stress Syndrome is something that a lot of FELA lawyers and regular lawyers overlook. It’s an occupational injury that occurs to many, many workers on the railroad during the course of their career. Take an Amtrak worker who takes a hard-throwing switch over and over again in snow and cold weather and rain – 14 years and slowly complains about his back, complains about the switch, year after year, year after year. Then finally, one day, he pulls the switch, he feels the pain, he’s in the ambulance and months later he’s operated on. Not only does he have a day of injury accident, but he has a repetitive stress syndrome, occupational injury status under the Federal Employers Liability Act. Repetitive Stress Syndrome is recognized under FELA.

It could be something as simple as a ticket clerk hitting something over and over and over again for 20 years and then one day he or she hits it and injures her wrist – that’s a repetitive stress injury. Or a worker jumping off a train, every single day at the same spot, year after year, year after year, and then after 20 years he realizes his knees are gone from jumping down from a car – maybe 20 feet, maybe 15 feet. That’s a FELA claim under repetitive stress syndrome – that’s recognized all the way up to the US Supreme Court and it’s something that’s overlooked quite frequently by FELA lawyers but not by this firm.

If you are suffering from repetitive stress syndrome from repeated work on a railway, call a New York FELA attorney for legal representation with Hach & Rose, LLP, at 212-779-0057.