A Texas appellate court on Thursday dismissed a worker’s claim under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act that accused a railroad of his injuries from a case he attributed to fatigue from being forced to work too long.
Greg Hanson worked for Fort Worth & Western Railroad Co. as a foreman when he is said to have suffered injuries in April 2019 in a case from a railway truck, according to documents in Hanson v. Fort Worth & Western Railroad Co., filed with the Court of Appeals, Second Appellate District of Texas, Fort Worth.
According to Mr. Hanson said it was a common part of his job to get off the truck, and he attributed his mistake not to unsafe physical conditions but to the fact that he was “stressed and tired”
; from working up to 17 hours that day. Hanson sued the railroad under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, claiming that the railroad had failed to provide a reasonably safe workplace by forcing him to continue working beyond the limit of fatigue. A district court issued a speedy verdict for the railway.The Court of Appeal said that although Mr Hanson made comments to the railway before his accident about how many hours he had to work, he did not complain that he was so exhausted that he could not work safely or that he could injure himself. .
“(We) conclude that in order for an employee to accuse his employer of notifying the employee that he feels he can not work safely, the statement should convey more than Mr. Hanson’s general complaint about the number of hours he had worked, ”the court said.
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