45 U.S.C. § 55 (2024)

This is the official text of 45 U.S.C. § 55 (2024), part of Federal (US Code)’s United States Code — the codified general and permanent federal statutes of the United States, organized into more than 50 numbered titles by subject.

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Contract, rule, regulation, or device exempting from liability; set-off

Official statutory text

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.

(Apr. 22, 1908, ch. 149, §5, 35 Stat. 66.)

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.