Giza v. BNSF Ry. Co.
Annotate this CasePlaintiff, an employee of BNSF Railway Company, was injured due to the railroad’s negligence. Because of his injury, Plaintiff was no longer able to work at his job. Plaintiff, who was almost fifty-nine years old, sued BNSF under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA) seeking $755,000 in economic damages, claiming that he planned to work until he was sixty-six years old. BNSF, in turn, attempted to introduce evidence that Plaintiff was eligible to retire on full benefits at age sixty and that most railroad employees in Plaintiff’s position retire at age sixty. The district court excluded the railroad’s evidence based on its reading of the federal collateral source rule applicable to FELA cases. A jury subsequently awarded $1.25 million, including pain and suffering, to Plaintiff. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded for a new trial on damages, holding (1) when a railroad employee makes a claim of lost earning capacity based on a hypothetical retirement age, federal law does not bar the introduction of evidence as to when railroad employees in the plaintiff’s position typically retire; and (2) BNSF was improperly precluded from presenting this excluded statistical evidence, and the error was not harmless.
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