Donahue v. Union Pacific Railroad Company

Background

Justin Donahue, Jason Campbell, and Jacob Goss were former Union Pacific conductors. Their jobs involved reading and interpreting multicolored railroad signal lights, and they were required to receive certification from the Federal Railroad Administration. The Federal Railroad Administration’s standards require conductors to recognize and distinguish railroad-signal colors.

Goss, Donahue, and Campbell failed Union Pacific’s Ishihara color-vision test and its Light Cannon field test in 2016, 2017, and 2018, respectively. Union Pacific then imposed permanent work restrictions preventing them from working as conductors or locomotive engineers. The plaintiffs asserted two claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act: disparate treatment and disparate impact. They challenged the validity of the Light Cannon test.

Procedural history and claims addressed

Union Pacific moved for summary judgment, arguing that the disparate-impact claim was time-barred, that both claims were precluded by the Federal Railroad Safety Act, and that both claims failed on the evidence.

The court had previously granted summary judgment to Union Pacific on both claims as time-barred. The plaintiffs appealed. The Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded, but the plaintiffs had elected to pursue only their disparate-treatment theory on appeal. The Ninth Circuit therefore did not address the disparate-impact claims. The court concluded that the remaining claims were the plaintiffs’ disparate-treatment claims.

Federal Railroad Safety Act preclusion

Union Pacific argued that federal railroad regulations gave the Federal Railroad Administration the exclusive procedure for challenging a denial of certification or recertification. The court rejected that argument. It found no language in the Federal Railroad Safety Act or its regulations expressly limiting Americans with Disabilities Act claims. It also found that the two laws have different purposes: the railroad-safety law focuses on railroad safety, while the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits disability discrimination in employment.

The court further reasoned that the laws use different enforcement systems. The Federal Railroad Safety Act is largely enforced through the Secretary of Transportation, while the Americans with Disabilities Act gives disabled employees a private right to sue their employers. The court found the reasoning of a decision in a related case more persuasive than the contrary reasoning of another district court. It also declined Union Pacific’s request to dismiss under the primary-jurisdiction doctrine, which can allow an agency to address an issue within its expertise, because the Federal Railroad Administration’s limited procedures did not appear to cover discrimination claims.

Disparate-treatment claim

To prove disparate treatment under the Americans with Disabilities Act, a plaintiff must show that he has a disability, is qualified to perform the job with or without reasonable accommodation, and was removed from the job because of the disability. The parties agreed that the first element was met in the sense that Union Pacific regarded the plaintiffs as disabled, although the plaintiffs disputed whether they were actually disabled.

The court ruled that recognizing railroad-signal colors is an essential function of a conductor’s job. Union Pacific used the Ishihara test as the initial test and the Light Cannon as a further field test for employees who failed the initial test. The court found that the plaintiffs had presented enough evidence to create a genuine dispute about the validity of the Light Cannon. That evidence alone, however, did not establish that they were qualified to work as conductors.

The court held that Campbell and Goss failed to raise a trial-worthy dispute about their qualifications. Their past job performance and earlier testing did not establish that they could meet the Federal Railroad Administration’s color-vision standards at the relevant time. The court also found no supporting evidence for Campbell’s alleged 2019 passage of an Ishihara test using a color-tinted lens and noted that the regulations prohibit chromatic lenses during the initial test.

Donahue presented evidence that he passed Ishihara tests administered by three private-practice optometrists in 2017. The court therefore found that he had raised a genuine dispute about whether he was qualified and considered whether he was removed because of a perceived disability.

Donahue relied on two documents stating that he had a color-vision deficit and was medically cleared to work with permanent restrictions. The court found that those documents did not directly show discriminatory intent because they were completed after he failed the color-vision tests and were intended to preserve his medical-insurance coverage. Union Pacific offered a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the restrictions: Donahue’s failure of the Ishihara and Light Cannon tests.

The court explained that Donahue therefore had to show that this stated reason was a pretext, meaning a reason offered to conceal disability discrimination. Donahue did not attempt to show that the testing reason was pretextual. The court concluded that he failed to raise a genuine dispute about whether Union Pacific removed him because of a perceived disability.

Disposition

The court granted Union Pacific’s motion for summary judgment. The ruling resolved the remaining disparate-treatment claims in Union Pacific’s favor; the disparate-impact claims were not addressed on appeal after the plaintiffs elected to pursue only disparate treatment.