We face the crucible of litigation daily, from the most routine personal injury claims to high-stakes commercial litigation. Jim Fletcher has been trying railroad cases for over fifteen years, including personal injury and property damage claims, commercial disputes and governmental challenges. He has taken over 30 cases to judgment, including numerous jury trials, in courtrooms around the Midwest. Jim Helenhouse has been litigating railroad cases for eight years, including numerous appeals in a wide variety of personal injury and commercial cases. He has had particular success in resolving disputes through mediation for reasonable payments while avoiding high litigation costs. We are an active member of the National Association of Railroad Trial Counsel and regularly participate in industry claims conferences and committees.
All railroads face the unpleasant challenge of FELA cases, and our approach is to protect the long-term financial health of the railroad while addressing each case. Thus, we will aggressively defend cases when necessary to establish credibly our willingness and ability to go to trial, and from that position exhaust all reasonable avenues of settlement. Because the established plaintiff's bar already recognizes our willingness and ability to litigate, we are frequently able to resolve cases on a realistic basis.
Just as important as our trial work, we also counsel our clients to develop strategies for improving workplace safety, investigating accidents, managing employee medical treatment and rehabilitation, and returning injured employees to productive work – strategies which help avoid plaintiff's lawyers and lawsuits. As a result our clients have achieved a ratio of payout per dollar of revenue that is consistently below industry averages.
The best example of the way we can work with our clients is a large regional railroad that our attorneys worked with for over twelve years, not only handling cases, but also providing counseling and advice to the claims and human resources departments. We regularly and directly participated in the entire claim management process, including assisting in the establishment and adjustment of reserves and advising company officers on investigations, discipline, medical management, rehabilitation, accident reconstruction, return to work issues and settlement negotiations. We think our efforts played an important role in that client's achieving a claims payout ratio below that of most other railroads, both Class I and regional.
Commercial disputes, whether with shippers, suppliers, other railroads, governmental bodies or others, are regularly part of the railroad business, as well. Fletcher & Sippel LLC's intimate knowledge of the practices, nomenclature, history and peculiar legal structure of the railroad industry allows us quickly to understand the disputes, find the right people with the right information, focus on the critical issues and present the railroad's position in the most compelling and efficient fashion. Our lawyers have represented railroads in scores of commercial disputes, many resulting in litigation or arbitration or other dispute resolution processes.
One area in which we have developed a particular expertise is disputes with governments and adjacent landowners who attempt to interfere with railroad operating practices – whether to control noise, pollution, traffic congestion or some other condition. We have successfully defended many of these cases by demonstrating that state or local action is preempted by federal legislation, and in doing so we have led the developing case law on preemption under the ICC Termination Act of 1995. For example, when a state sought to condemn a portion of a client's passing track we convinced a federal court that the state's condemnation authority had been preempted by ICCTA. We have also used preemption under the ICCTA to defeat efforts by local governments to interfere with switching operations in residential areas and to prohibit locomotives from idling within municipal boundaries.
As any railroad manager knows, railroads remain one of the most regulated industries in the country. As regulatory counsel, we help guide our railroad clients through the maze of federal and state regulatory requirements affecting their business. The firm's regulatory attorneys have over 60 years of collective experience in helping clients accomplish their objectives within this arcane and often complicated regulatory structure.
Bill Sippel and T.J. Litwiler have been involved on behalf of railroad clients in every aspect of regulation by the STB and its predecessor the Interstate Commerce Commission. This includes transactions and other projects for which STB approval or exemption is required, such as:
The firm's regulatory expertise also extends to issues relating to common carriage such as:
Although providing advice and representation on regulatory matters is an important part of the firm’s practice, we are more than regulatory counsel -- we are railroad counsel familiar with the business of railroad transportation. This requires knowledge of the structure of the industry, railroad operations, marketing and finance, competition, ratemaking, equipment and organization. It also requires an understanding of the relationships among multiple carriers, between carriers and their customers, and between carriers and their suppliers. The firm's senior attorneys have more than half a century of in-house railroad experience assisting large and small railroads in all aspects of their business and in each of these relationships. This includes providing advice, resolving disputes and negotiating, drafting, interpreting and enforcing contracts of all kinds, such as:
Our attorneys also have extensive experience with AAR rules and agreements, including the Interchange Rules and the Car Service and Car Hire Rules.
Other agencies regulate railroads too, and Fletcher & Sippel LLC attorneys have extensively practiced before the FRA, state DOTs and utility commissions, the Railroad Retirement Board, OSHA and other federal, state and local regulatory bodies.
A particularly unique aspect of the firm is our ability to apply the firm's regulatory expertise in litigation matters that may raise regulatory issues or considerations. In many instances, a matter may involve both court and regulatory proceedings. The firm's capability to provide both regulatory and litigation expertise assures that all relevant issues and arguments are considered and eliminates the inefficiency of retaining two firms to work on different aspects of the same case.
Fletcher & Sippel LLC attorneys have handled virtually every type of railroad-related commercial transaction. We have drafted and negotiated a host of Class I, II and III mergers and acquisitions, line sales, trackage rights and other joint facilities, marketing agreements, and construction and supply contracts. Myles Tobin negotiated all transactions relating to construction and operation of an $80 million dry bulk transfer facility and a $6 million liquid bulk storage facility. The firm attorneys have negotiated innovative terminal services and haulage agreements, which have generated hundreds of millions of dollars for our clients.
The commercial transactions that we have managed for our clients cover a wide range of areas, including purchase of service agreements with Amtrak and Metra, locomotive and car purchase agreements and leasing arrangements, haulage deals, and third-party supply contracts.
We pride ourselves on negotiating innovative commercial solutions to accomplish the revenue and cost objectives of our clients. Our deals have ranged from $5,000 to $1.6 billion. In all cases, we “keep our eye on the ball,” by finding ways to structure deals that make sense and accomplish our clients’ objectives.
Fletcher & Sippel LLC attorneys have counseled and litigated in virtually every aspect of railroad and rail-related employment matters. Ron Lane has practiced in this field for 30 years and served as a railroad negotiator at the Carrier's Conference Committee and managed the HR/Labor Relations functions of two Class I railroads. Jim Helenhouse has handled several labor-related disputes and advises clients on Railroad Retirement coverage issues.
The firm's labor and employment practice ranges from advising management on responses to union organizing campaigns, enjoining rail strikes and defending employment discrimination claims, to advising on the application of Railroad Retirement and Unemployment Insurance taxes and benefits. Our expertise is not limited to railroad statutes because we frequently must address non-rail labor matters for suppliers to the railroad industry.
Our recent activities in this area include representing a client from the trial court to the Supreme Court in a disability discrimination case successfully preempted by the Railway Labor Act, representing a major railroad supplier in a decertification proceeding and the resulting labor battles before the NLRB, helping to formulate the management campaign in response to UTU and BLE representation petitions at the NMB, handling railroad strike injunction litigation, and advising small railroads on labor protection issues and transaction structures that avoid or minimize labor protection and successor liabilities. Fletcher & Sippel LLC has provided a broad range of advice to railroads and railroad suppliers concerning Railroad Retirement coverage and corporate structuring of non-rail operations to minimize tax costs.
Our unique experience gives Fletcher & Sippel LLC an unparalleled understanding of management's perspectives and goals in labor and employment matters. We are also unique in our ability to provide our clients with the benefit of an extensive personal network of governmental officials, labor union leaders, railroad negotiators and other key players in the rail and rail-related industry.
A unique aspect of Fletcher & Sippel LLC's law practice is the role that several of its attorneys perform as "General Counsel" for rail-related companies. Because no less than four of our lawyers served as in-house counsel for Class I and II railroads, we have been able to provide a highly-valued level of experience and industry insight to smaller businesses, many of which cannot afford to retain full time in-house counsel.
Ron Lane came to Fletcher & Sippel LLC with 15 years of legal and personnel/labor relations experience at Santa Fe Railway and 10 years as Vice President and General Counsel at Illinois Central. Myles Tobin brought to us the experience of 9 years in the law department of the Chicago and Northwestern, and 10 years at Illinois Central/Canadian National, culminating as General Counsel and then Vice President-Law. Janet Gilbert has a total of 20 years of in-house experience focusing on supervision of claims and litigation, contracts, regulatory matters, government affairs and including 6 years as Vice President and General Counsel of Wisconsin Central. Bill Sippel practiced in-house for 11 years with the Milwaukee Road and Soo Line Railroad, becoming General Counsel-Administrative Law and Contracts for the Soo Line before moving into private practice.
A large part of our practice focuses on bringing that wealth of experience to our smaller clients by acting as their "General Counsel." In that role, we help our clients analyze and structure business transactions, develop and implement corporate policies, procedures, handbooks, and practices, and generally assist them, not only to comply with legal requirements but also to minimize risk in their day-to-day operations. We regularly review or manage litigation, insurance, contracts, regulatory compliance and advise on other aspects of risk management, as well as design and execute governmental and public policy programs. Of course, we also provide our clients with access to an extensive web of business, industry, and governmental relationships.