Sanders v. BNSF Railway Co.

Background

The Federal Railroad Safety Act prohibits a railroad from taking adverse action against an employee for reporting violations of federal railroad-safety laws or refusing to violate those laws. Don Sanders alleged that BNSF Railway Co. terminated his employment as a track inspector in April 2016 because he reported track defects, continued reporting them, and reported pressure to reduce his reporting. BNSF denied violating the Act and maintained that it terminated Sanders for falsifying payroll records.

The court previously denied BNSF’s motion for summary judgment. After trial, the jury found that BNSF unlawfully retaliated against Sanders. It awarded him $611,797 in backpay and benefits and $250,000 in emotional-distress damages. In a separate punitive-damages phase, the jury awarded $8.6 million. Before final judgment, the court addressed Sanders’s request for front pay and BNSF’s request to apply the Federal Railroad Safety Act’s $250,000 punitive-damages limit.

Front Pay

Front pay is future lost compensation awarded instead of reinstatement. It is an exceptional remedy, generally available when returning the employee to the former job is impractical or impossible. The parties agreed, and the trial record showed, that reinstating Sanders as a BNSF track inspector was impractical because of substantial hostility between Sanders and BNSF personnel. The court considered Sanders’s reports of harassment and retaliation, his covert recordings of workplace conversations, the investigations involving BNSF employees, the continued employment of personnel involved in the dispute, the length of time since his termination, and his lack of comparable railroad employment during that period.

Sanders requested $597,155 in front pay. BNSF argued that Sanders had already adequately reduced his losses through other employment and that delays during the COVID-19 pandemic had allowed him to recover an unusually long period of backpay. The court rejected both arguments. It concluded that the jury had already found Sanders’s efforts to reduce his losses reasonable and that the passage of time was only one factor in determining the equitable award.

The court also considered Sanders’s age, his approximately nine years of BNSF employment, his stated intention to work there until retirement, evidence of rule violations and performance problems, evidence concerning workplace conflict, his efforts to find comparable work, his reported heart condition, his union status, and the stressful nature of the track-inspector position. The court concluded that Sanders was entitled to two years of front pay, but not the full amount requested. It awarded $78,010.24 in front pay and future benefits.

Punitive Damages

The Federal Railroad Safety Act caps punitive damages at $250,000. Sanders did not argue that the cap should ultimately not apply; he argued that the court should wait until after judgment to reduce the jury’s award. The court rejected that argument, finding no authority requiring the reduction to occur only after judgment. It also concluded that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure did not require entry of judgment on a punitive-damages verdict exceeding the statutory limit.

Order and Result

Judge Eric C. Tostrud granted in part Sanders’s motion for front pay. The court granted BNSF’s motion to apply the statutory maximum for punitive damages. Sanders was awarded a total of $1,189,807.24: $78,010.24 in front pay and future benefits, $611,797 in backpay and past benefits, $250,000 in emotional-distress damages, and $250,000 in punitive damages.