Alliance Injury & Railroad Attorney

Alliance is a railroad town, and that shapes almost everything about the injury cases that come out of it. I have handled car crashes, premises liability claims and a great many workers’ compensation cases from Box Butte County, and I actively represent firefighters in workers’ compensation claims in the Alliance and Scottsbluff area.

If you were hurt working for the railroad, your claim is not a workers’ compensation claim at all. That distinction is the single most important thing on this page.

If You Work for BNSF, You Are Not in the Workers’ Comp System

Alliance sits at the center of BNSF’s Powder River Basin coal operation. The yard here is one of the largest classification yards in the region, with locomotive and railcar servicing on site, and coal traffic out of Wyoming converges through it. For a city of roughly eight thousand people, that is an extraordinary concentration of heavy rail work — switching, car repair, locomotive servicing, maintenance of way, and all the exposure that comes with them.

Railroad workers are covered by the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, not Nebraska workers’ compensation. The differences are not technicalities:

• You must prove negligence. Workers’ compensation is no-fault; FELA is not. You have to show the railroad was negligent in some degree.
• But the causation standard is unusually low. If the railroad’s negligence played any part, even the slightest, in producing your injury, that is enough.
• Damages are far broader. FELA allows pain and suffering and full lost earning capacity. Nebraska workers’ compensation does not pay for pain and suffering at all.
• Your own fault reduces but does not bar recovery — comparative negligence under 45 U.S.C. § 53. And where the railroad violated a safety statute, your contributory negligence is not counted against you at all.
• The deadline is three years, not Nebraska’s four. For occupational disease, it runs from when you knew or should have known of the injury and its work connection.

That last point matters enormously for the occupational disease claims — the cancers and lung disease that surface decades after the exposure that caused them. I handle those, including mesothelioma, lung, colon, throat, esophageal, pharyngeal and stomach cancers, and the discovery rule is often what keeps such a claim alive.

There is more detail on the railroad injuries and FELA page, including how crossing collisions are handled.

Firefighters in Box Butte County

I represent firefighters in workers’ compensation claims in this area, and there is a piece of Nebraska law worth being exact about.

Neb. Rev. Stat. § 35-1001 provides prima facie evidence that cancer is duty-related where a firefighter suffers death or disability from it — not where a firefighter simply receives a diagnosis. You generally need to show you passed an entry physical revealing no cancer, that you were exposed to a carcinogen identified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, and that the agency reports that substance as a suspected or known cause of your cancer type.

A 2026 bill, LB400, would have added a true rebuttable presumption to the Workers’ Compensation Act. It failed a cloture vote 32–15 in March 2026 and is not law, notwithstanding what some national firefighter resources say about Nebraska. If you are a firefighter here with a diagnosis, the file has to be built around disability, and it has to be built early.

Premises Liability and Work Injuries Away From the Railroad

Not everyone in Alliance works for BNSF. The cases I have handled from Box Butte County also include premises liability claims and a large number of ordinary workers’ compensation cases — the healthcare, retail, municipal, agricultural and trades work that makes up the rest of the local economy.

Premises cases in a town like Alliance turn on the same questions they do anywhere: did the property owner know about the hazard, or should they have, and what did they do about it. Winter conditions make that a live question for a large part of the year here. Documentation is what wins these — photographs before the condition changes, the identity of anyone who saw it, and an incident report made the same day.

One thing worth flagging on any work injury: if a party other than your employer contributed to your injury — a contractor, a negligent driver, the manufacturer of a defective machine — you may have both a workers’ compensation claim and a separate third-party claim at the same time. Those are handled differently and are worth very different amounts.

Where a Box Butte County Case Is Heard

Alliance is the county seat of Box Butte County, so unlike a lot of Panhandle towns, your case is heard in your own city. Box Butte County is part of the 12th Judicial District, the same twelve-county western district that includes Scotts Bluff, Dawes, Sheridan, Cheyenne and Kimball.

A FELA case is different. FELA claims can be brought in state or federal court, and where a railroad case is filed is a strategic decision with real consequences — venue affects the jury pool, the pace of the docket, and sometimes the value of the claim. That decision gets made case by case, and it is one of the reasons a railroad injury should not be handled as if it were an ordinary comp claim.

Alliance is about six hours from my Omaha office. Intake happens by phone or video, and I travel here when a case calls for it. You will not be asked to drive across the state to meet your lawyer.

Related Practice Areas

This page covers what is specific to Alliance. The pages below cover how the claims themselves work.

Railroad Injuries & FELA · Work Injuries & Workers’ Comp · Slip, Fall & Premises Liability

Frequently Asked Questions

I was hurt working at the BNSF yard in Alliance. Is that workers’ compensation?

No. Railroad employees are covered by the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, not state workers’ compensation. You have to prove the railroad was negligent to some degree, but the causation standard is very low and the damages available are far broader — including pain and suffering, which Nebraska workers’ compensation does not pay at all.

How long do I have to bring a FELA claim?

Three years. For occupational disease — cancers and lung disease that appear long after the exposure — the clock generally runs from when you knew or reasonably should have known of the injury and its connection to your railroad work, not from the date of exposure.

The railroad says the accident was partly my fault. Does that end my claim?

No. FELA uses comparative negligence under 45 U.S.C. § 53, so your share reduces your recovery rather than barring it. And if the railroad violated a safety statute, your contributory negligence is not counted against you at all.

I am an Alliance firefighter with a cancer diagnosis. What does Nebraska law give me?

Less than you have probably been told. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 35-1001 provides prima facie evidence where a firefighter suffers death or disability from cancer, subject to conditions about your entry physical and carcinogen exposure — it does not attach to a diagnosis by itself. LB400 would have created a broader presumption but failed in March 2026.

Do you come to Alliance?

Yes. I handle intake by phone and video and travel to Box Butte County when a case requires it. Alliance is the county seat, so cases from this county are heard here rather than in another town.

Can I have both a workers’ compensation claim and an injury claim?

Sometimes, and it is worth checking every time. If someone other than your employer contributed — a subcontractor, a driver, a machine manufacturer, a property owner — you may have a third-party claim alongside the comp claim. They are worth very different things.