30+ former Roseville workers filed lawsuits in San Francisco County Superior Court, alleging Union Pacific knew for decades that diesel exhaust and other carcinogens were making its workers sick
ROSEVILLE, CA, October 14, 2026 — Today, more than 30 former Roseville rail yard workers filed suit against Union Pacific Railroad in San Francisco County Superior Court. The lawsuits allege Union Pacific knew for decades that exposure to diesel exhaust, benzene, silica dust, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and other toxic substances causes serious and deadly illnesses, but the railroad never warned them of these clear risks or provided the necessary personal protective equipment (PPE).
According to the complaint, Union Pacific and the other major railroads understood the cancer risks these chemicals posed, based on Association of American Railroads proceedings dating to the 1950s and 1960s and more than a century of epidemiological research. The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies toxins railroad workers regularly come into contact with, including diesel exhaust, benzene, and silica, as known human carcinogens.
“Since at least the 1950s, Union Pacific has known it was exposing workers to a toxic soup of chemicals linked to cancer and other serious illnesses. Its workers had no such knowledge,” said Adam Gomez of Grant & Eisenhofer. “Federal law requires a railroad to use reasonable care to keep its workplaces safe, and that begins with telling workers about the risks and giving them the equipment to protect themselves. Union Pacific did neither.”
“We kept America’s freight moving, and it cost us our health,” said William Sanchez, plaintiff and Union Pacific equipment operator with more than 40 years working on the railroad. “We made Union Pacific rich and trusted it to look out for us. Instead, I’ve watched too many of the people I worked alongside with get sick. Now I’m one of them. We’re doing this to make the railroad safer, so nobody else ends up like us.”
The cluster of nearly three dozen workers diagnosed with a range of serious illnesses, including COPD, colon cancer, bladder cancer, lung cancer, prostate cancer, kidney disease, lymphoma, leukemia and other cancers and blood disorders, spent years working at the company’s J.R. Davis Yard in Roseville, California, the largest rail yard on the West Coast. They worked as machinists, carmen, welders, trackmen, signal maintainers, conductors, engineers and switchmen. Despite decades spent laboring in poorly ventilated shops around running diesel trains, none were given proper dust masks or respirators.
“These illnesses can take decades to surface, and that’s the cruelty of it. A worker gives the railroad thirty or forty years, retires, and only then does the cancer arrive,” said Carisa German-Oden of Poolson | Oden. “Our clients spent their careers in the same yard, breathing the same air, and now they are being treated for the same kinds of diseases. We intend to hold Union Pacific accountable and make an industry that has operated with impunity answer for the workers it left behind.”
California regulators have documented the conditions at the Roseville yard. A 2004 California Air Resources Board (CARB) assessment found that locomotive operations there released about 25 tons of diesel particulate matter per year, nearly half of it from idling engines. CARB estimated that the lifetime cancer risk exceeds 500 in a million for residents living northwest of the yard. But the study did not model conditions for people working in and around locomotives generating these emissions.
The new filings come amid a growing wave of Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA) lawsuits by railroad workers across the country alleging serious illness caused by toxic workplace exposures. Railroad workers are excluded from state workers’ compensation systems, making FELA their only avenue for recovery. More than 125 railroad workers filed similar lawsuits in the last month against Norfolk Southern in Philadelphia.
About Grant & Eisenhofer P.A.
Grant & Eisenhofer P.A. is a nationally recognized plaintiffs’ litigation firm founded in 1997 by Stuart Grant and Jay Eisenhofer. Over nearly three decades, the firm has built a track record in complex, high-stakes litigation against major corporations and institutions, recovering billions for clients, with a practice spanning securities litigation, antitrust, whistleblower, mass torts and environmental litigation, and catastrophic injury cases.
Don’t Get Railroaded ®
Contact Our Experienced Attorneys Today to Get Back On The Right Track.
About Poolson | Oden
Poolson | Oden is a national railroad and serious injury litigation firm founded by Daniel Poolson Jr. and Carisa German-Oden. In the years since, the firm has become one of the country’s go-to firms for injured railroad workers and their families, recovering tens of millions of dollars for clients across FELA, FRSA retaliation, and maritime injuries, along with truck and car accidents, wrongful death, burn injuries, and other serious personal injury cases nationwide.
