45 U.S.C. § 59
Section 59 · Survival of right of action of person injured
Amended 2 times on record
Applied in 84 court decisions — leading case Gillespie v. United States Steel Corp. (1964)
Most recently applied in 2025 Pa. Super. 103 - Edwards, D. v. Norfolk Southern Railway (May 2025)
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 right of action given by this chapter to a person suffering injury shall survive to his or her personal representative, for the benefit of the surviving widow or husband and children of such employee, and, if none, then of such employee's parents; and, if none, then of the next of kin dependent upon such employee, but in such cases there shall be only one recovery for the same injury.