ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Tuesday, January 16, 1996              TAG: 9601160048
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C-4  EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK 

NS WORKER'S AWARD UPHELD

The Virginia Supreme Court has affirmed a Roanoke jury's decision to award $200,000 to a former railroad worker who suffered carpal tunnel syndrome from operating a hand-held power tool.

Alfred Reid Johnson had claimed that Norfolk Southern Corp. was negligent because it never warned him that the repetitive motions of operating an air-powered grinder could cause pain in his arms and wrists.

Although it found that NS was negligent, the jury awarded Johnson just one-third of his estimated lost wages.

Johnson, who said he was unable to work because of his injuries, had asked for nearly $2 million in damages, including lost wages, at the 1994 trial.

The award is believed to be one of the first in Southwest Virginia involving carpal tunnel syndrome.

NS appealed, arguing that Roanoke Circuit Judge Clifford Weckstein erred when he failed to rule that the railroad was not negligent.

But in a decision released Friday, the Supreme Court ruled that Johnson had submitted enough proof for the jury to conclude that "employer negligence played a part, even the slightest, in producing the injury for which damages were sought."

Johnson testified at the trial that he began suffering from pain and numbness in his hands shortly after he started his job in 1989, using a double-gripped, hand-held power grinder to sand down boxcars and other equipment in the railroad shops. He underwent surgery to correct the problem but continued to experience pain in his hands and was taken off the job in 1993.

His lawsuit claimed that the railroad knew his job could cause carpal tunnel syndrome but failed to warn him, and that it should have given him gloves or taken other protective measures.

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