Great Falls Jury Awards Injured BNSF Trackman $1.7 Million Under FELA, Finding Railroad 100% at Fault
After trial: BNSF's motion for a new trial was denied and the FELA verdict was paid in full. A separate bad-faith claim by Dannels ended in a stipulated judgment that the Montana Supreme Court affirmed in 2021 MT 71; it is not part of the amount shown here.
Won by Conner, Marr & Pinski PLLP.
Robert Dannels, a BNSF railroad trackman, suffered a permanently disabling back and spine injury in 2010 when a skid-steer loader he was operating struck a buried steel wellhead. A Cascade County jury in 2013 found BNSF 100 percent at fault and awarded $1.7 million under the Federal Employers' Liability Act. The court denied BNSF's motion for a new trial, and BNSF paid the full verdict amount.
What happened
Robert Dannels worked for BNSF Railway as a trackman for about twenty years. On March 17, 2010, the railroad assigned him to clear snow in its Havre rail yard with a skid-steer loader. While he was doing that work, the loader struck a steel wellhead that had been buried under the snow, a hazard a coworker had left in the work area. The impact injured his lower back and spine. According to the court filings in the case, the injury left him permanently disabled and unable to work, and BNSF ended his employment.
Dannels turned to the Federal Employers' Liability Act, the federal law that lets railroad workers recover from their employers when the railroad's negligence played any part in an on-the-job injury. He asked BNSF to compensate him and, he later told the courts, got no payment in the years that followed, not even for lost wages. He then filed suit in Montana state court in Cascade County, represented by Dennis Conner and Keith Marr of Conner & Marr, the Great Falls firm now called Conner, Marr & Pinski, along with Erik Thueson.
The case was tried to a jury in Great Falls in 2013. Before trial, BNSF asked the court to bar Dannels from presenting emotional distress that was not tied directly to his physical injury, and the court granted that request and instructed the jury to limit damages to those caused by the physical impact. The jury found BNSF negligent, assigned BNSF 100 percent of the fault and Dannels none, and returned a verdict of $1.7 million.
BNSF moved for a new trial and the district court denied the motion. The railroad did not take the FELA verdict to the Montana Supreme Court. Instead, the parties resolved the case for $1.7 million, the full amount the jury had awarded. A 2019 brief filed in the Montana Supreme Court by a group supporting BNSF describes the settlement at the full verdict figure.
The verdict was not the end of the dispute between the two sides. In 2014 Dannels filed a second lawsuit alleging that BNSF had handled and defended his FELA claim in bad faith. That separate claim ended in a stipulated judgment against BNSF, which the Montana Supreme Court affirmed in Dannels v. BNSF Railway Co., 2021 MT 71. The ranked result here is only the 2013 FELA verdict.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Montana Supreme Court, Dannels v. BNSF Railway Co., 2021 MT 71, No. DA 19-0343, March 23, 2021·Archived copy
- 2.Petition for a Writ of Certiorari and Appendix, BNSF Railway Co. v. Dannels, U.S. Supreme Court No. 21-270, Aug. 30, 2021
- 3.Montana Eighth Judicial District Court, Cascade County, Dannels v. BNSF Railway Co., Order on Sanctions, 2018·Archived copy
- 4.Brief of Washington Legal Foundation as Amicus Curiae, Dannels v. BNSF Railway Co., Montana Supreme Court No. DA 19-0343, Sept. 25, 2019
- 5.Brief in Opposition, BNSF Railway Co. v. Dannels, U.S. Supreme Court No. 21-270, Dec. 8, 2021·Archived copy
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