§ 25-21,184.Railroad company; actions by employees against; negligence; assumption of risk.

Assumption of risk historically let an employer avoid liability by arguing the injured worker knew the job carried danger and took it anyway. Section 25-21,184 takes that defense off the table for railroad workers in one specific circumstance. In an action against a railroad or street railroad company for personal injury to an employee, whether or not the injury results in death, the employee is not held to have assumed the risks of employment in any case where the railroad company or its agents, servants, or employees were guilty of negligence.

The effect is to tie the availability of the assumption-of-risk defense to the company’s own conduct. If the railroad or someone acting for it was negligent, the company cannot fall back on the argument that the employee accepted the danger by continuing to work. The section reaches injuries that prove fatal as well as those that do not, so it applies the same way whether the employee’s estate or the employee brings the claim.