Casey Jones Wins Appeal of District Court Dismissal of Disabled Worker’s Discrimination Claim

August 2, 2022

The Tenth Circuit today ruled in favor of former conductor Kelly Dansie today, holding that the district court erred in granting summary judgment for Union Pacific on Dansie’s disability discrimination claim and ordering the case to proceed to trial.

As the Court explained, the Americans with Disabilities Act provides that “[w]hen an employee provides notice to his employer of a disability and expresses a desire for a reasonable accommodation, the employee and employer must engage in good faith-communications . . . to determine the employee’s limitations and consider whether the accommodations he requests—or perhaps others that might surface during the interactive process—would enable the employee to determine to work.” Dansie v. Union Pacific, No. 20-4054 (10th Cir. Aug. 2, 2022).

The Tenth Circuit then held that Dansie had presented sufficient evidence to raise a jury question as to whether Union Pacific properly engaged in a good-faith, interactive process to accommodate Dansie’s disability and whether Dansie could have continued working as a conductor had the two sides decided upon a reasonable accommodation. As a result of the Tenth Circuit’s holding, the District Court’s grant of summary judgment to Union Pacific on Dansie’s disability discrimination was reversed, and the matter was ordered to proceed to trial on that claim.