Norfolk Southern ordered to pay fired worker $438K

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) -- A federal agency has ordered Norfolk Southern Railway Co. to rehire an Indiana man and pay him about $438,000 in damages after concluding he was wrongfully fired after he reported a workplace injury.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration said the Fort Wayne-based crane operator had suffered an injury "requiring the extraction of a sliver of metal and rust ring from his eye" during a bridge-building project.

The Journal Gazette reported that OSHA said the worker was fired in August 2010 after the railway company, based in Norfolk, Va., "determined he had made false statements" about the injury. But OSHA said the worker wouldn't have been terminated if he had not reported his workplace injury, and said Norfolk Southern violated whistleblower provisions of the Federal Railroad Safety Act.

Norfolk Southern was ordered to rehire the worker at the appropriate seniority level and pay him $175,000 in punitive damages, nearly $156,500 in back wages and benefits, $100,000 in compensation for pain and suffering and nearly $6,100 in other expenses.

OSHA also ordered the railroad to restore vacation and sick days he would have earned. The U.S. Labor Department said it does not release the names of workers involved in whistleblower complaints.

Norfolk Southern said Thursday it will appeal the ruling to an administrative law judge.

The company said in a statement that OSHA's order "is the result of a flawed, one-sided procedure in which the railroad was not permitted to question the employees under oath or cross-examine witnesses."
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Information from: The Journal Gazette, http://www.journalgazette.net