(The Associated Press circulated the following article on September 15.)
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A former railroad employee who claimed workplace exposure to cleaning solvents caused permanent brain damage has been awarded $1.8 million by a jury.
The lawsuit by Terry L. Williams targeted his former employer, CSX Transportation.
Williams worked 34 years for the railroad, leaving in 2000 after having been diagnosed with toxic encephalopathy, said Kenneth Sales, senior partner in the law firm that handled Williams’ case. Williams’ career as a machinist working on locomotives started at the L&N’s old South Louisville shops and ended at a maintenance facility in Corbin.
CSX spokesman Gary Sease declined to comment on the award by the Jefferson County Circuit Court, which followed a two-week trial. It was the latest in a string of lawsuits in several states involving hundreds of railroad workers.
In 2001, The Courier-Journal of Louisville found that more than 600 U.S. railroad employees had been diagnosed with brain damage after working years with solvents with little or no protection.
CSX had, as of 2001, paid $35 million in settlements or awards to 466 current or former employees who filed claims under the federal compensation law for railroad employees. Jury verdicts have gone both ways, with railroad companies claiming other factors may have caused illnesses.
Use of the chemicals in question was largely phased out by railroads by the early 1990s.
Researchers in West Virginia earlier this year documented that solvents used by railroad workers shrank an area that helps the two sides of the brain communicate.
Sales said the study was brought up during the trial. He said his firm is handling about 100 similar cases.