I'm Nick Thompson a partner at Casey Jones law we're a firm dedicated to representing Railroad employees. Part of representing railroad employees is not just helping them after the fact. It's also educating them on their rights. For that reason we're making a series of videos on the questions we're most often ask. We hope they help.

So in an earlier video we talked about whether you have to fill out an injury report form or give a statement and I made clear that well yes you have to do those things initially. You do not have to talk to claims. Those are different things. Why are they different things? Why does the law treat them differently? It's simply that one is run by operations meant to figure out what caused the injury so we can fix it doesn't get caused again doesn't injure anybody else. The other is by claims which is part of the Law Department. It is designed to minimize the amount the railroad pays you.

You are required to help operations minimize the chance of somebody else getting injured. Thus the reason you have to fill out a personal injury report form or give a statement initially to operations. You are not required to help the railroad minimize the amount it pays you by talking to the claims department. You have an unfettered right to refuse to talk to claims.

Now what if you're being ordered by your supervisor to talk to claims. First, clarify and make sure it's an order. “Are you ordering me to talk to claims?” We have yet to have a supervisor say that when called out on this and asked if you're being ordered that says yes.

But if your supervisor does say yes, take the second step. Memorialize it. Put in writing whether via email or text: “on such and such date I asked you if you I was being ordered to talk to the claims department despite not wanting to. You told me I was. Please let me know if I've misunderstood anything.”

Then step three. If by some happenstance the supervisor stands on that order, call us because what they're doing violates the law.