45 U.S.C. § 55
Section 55 · Contract, rule, regulation, or device exempting from liability; set-off
This is the Federal Employers' Liability Act
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 231 court decisions — leading case Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Company v. Buell (1987)
Most recently applied in Joseph Mattingly v. R.J. Corman R.R. Grp., LLC (January 2024)
Cases citing this section usually also cite 45 U.S.C. § 51 · 45 U.S.C. § 56 · 45 U.S.C. § 53
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Any contract, rule, regulation, or device whatsoever, the purpose or intent of which shall be to enable any common carrier to exempt itself from any liability created by this chapter, shall to that extent be void: Provided, That in any action brought against any such common carrier under or by virtue of any of the provisions of this chapter, such common carrier may set off therein any sum it has contributed or paid to any insurance, relief benefit, or indemnity that may have been paid to the injured employee or the person entitled thereto on account of the injury or death for which said action was brought.