The reason that congress passed the what we call Whistleblower law is directly related to railroad abuse of their employees. I had a case in Seattle, Washington where employee had put a can of soup on a radiator to warm it up. The can exploded, he got some hot soup on his skin and he fills out an accident report. It wasn’t that big an injury but they wanted to get him for turning in an accident report. And so, they harassed him and harassed him and at one point in time they said you’ve got to get a medical report update test from your doctor. They gave him five days to do it and they did that the Thursday before Memorial Day so he didn’t have enough time to do it, and then they fired him.

Well I said that’s not going to happen. We ended up winning this case but then I said, we’re going to do something about it. I talked to a congressman from Minnesota named Jim Oberstar who was from the Duluth area. I told him the story and he was on the rail subcommittee or the transportation committee that handles all this. And he says, “Bill, if I get the gavel next year, you’re going to get a hearing.” And the gavel means he became chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. And sure enough, he said okay, send me all the evidence. So I sent him evidence from all around the country of how railroads are harassing and abusing their employees. And they had a hearing that I went and testified at and they passed this wonderful law, which protects employees. If an employee’s injured and fills out an accident report, they can get protected. If the railroad harasses somebody for reporting an unsafe condition, they’re protected.

And I just tried a case in Montana this past year where an employee was trying to operate a locomotive door, it didn’t work, and he hurts his wrist. He goes off the locomotive to do a roll by to watch another train at night, when he’s climbing back onto the locomotive, his wrist gave out, he fell down, and now he breaks his wrist. He goes to the doctor, fills out an accident report, and railroad decides we’re going to fire this guy. So they tried to claim he got hurt at home. And they got all kinds of evidence and witnesses and stuff to say he got hurt at home. This would have been a simple back to work case. Long story short, we went to trial, it took almost three weeks to try, they offered zero. They jury gave us $2.1 million for him and assessed, the court assessed fees and costs of over $1 million extra. So the railroad by harassing their employee cost themselves $3 million. That’s what can happen.