Opinion ID: 4192345
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: FRSA Retaliation Claim

Text: “We review a district court’s grant of a motion for summary judgment de novo, viewing all evidence and drawing all reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party.” Heim v. BNSF Ry. Co., 849 F.3d 723, 726 (8th Cir. 2017) (quotation omitted). “Summary judgment is appropriate if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Id. (quotations omitted). FRSA provides that a railroad “may not discharge, demote, suspend, reprimand, or in any other way discriminate against an employee if such discrimination is due, in whole or in part, to the employee’s lawful, good faith act done . . . to notify . . . the railroad carrier . . . of a work-related personal injury” or to cooperate with a federal investigation. 49 U.S.C. § 20109(a)(1), (4), (5). A railroad likewise may not “discharge, demote, suspend, reprimand, or in any other way discriminate against an employee for . . . reporting, in good faith, a hazardous safety or security condition.” Id. § 20109(b)(1)(A). We analyze FRSA retaliation claims in two steps. First, the plaintiff must make a prima facie case. Kuduk v. BNSF Ry. Co., 768 F.3d 786, 789 (8th Cir. 2014) (citing 49 U.S.C. § 42121(b)(2)(B)(i)). If the plaintiff satisfies this requirement, the railroad has the opportunity to demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that it would have discharged the employee even if he had not engaged in protected activity. Id. (citing 49 U.S.C. § 42121(b)(2)(B)(ii)). To make a prima facie case, Loos must demonstrate: that (1) “he engaged in protected activity”; (2) BNSF “knew or suspected, actually or constructively, that he engaged in the protected activity”; (3) “he suffered an adverse action;” and (4) “the circumstances raise an inference that the protected activity was a contributing factor in the adverse action.” See id. The parties do not dispute that Loos engaged in protected activity of which BNSF was aware and that Loos suffered an adverse -7- action. Thus, we need only determine whether a genuine dispute exists as to the final prong—whether the circumstances raise an inference that Loos’s protected activity was a contributing factor to his discharge. “[A] contributing factor is any factor which, alone or in connection with other factors, tends to affect in any way the outcome of the decision.” Id. at 791 (quotation omitted). Though the employee need not “conclusively demonstrate the employer’s retaliatory motive,” id., he must show that intentional retaliation prompted by a protected activity was a contributing factor, Blackorby v. BNSF Ry. Co., 849 F.3d 716, 722 (8th Cir. 2017).5 To determine whether the circumstances raise an inference of retaliatory motive in the absence of direct evidence, we consider circumstantial evidence such as the temporal proximity between the protected activity and the adverse action, indications of pretext such as inconsistent application of policies and shifting explanations, antagonism or hostility toward protected activity, the relation between the discipline and the protected activity, and the presence of intervening events that independently justify discharge. See DeFrancesco v. Union R.R. Co., ARB No. 10-114, 2012 WL 694502, at  (U.S. Dep’t of Labor Feb. 29, 2012); Gunderson, 850 F.3d at 969. The court also takes “into account the evidence of the employer’s nonretaliatory reasons.” Gunderson, 850 F.3d at 969 (quotation omitted). Loos argues that BNSF dismissed him in retaliation for one or more of three protected activities: (1) submitting safety reports and serving on the safety committee, (2) reporting an on-duty injury, and (3) testifying in the Peterson-Gunderson FRSA hearing. None of these activities occurred in temporal proximity to Loos’s discharge. Loos served on the safety committee between 2007 and 2008, approximately five years prior to his dismissal. Likewise, the safety report documented in the record 5 Although Loos cites to Araujo v. New Jersey Transit Rail Operations, Inc., 708 F.3d 152 (3d Cir. 2013), which employs a more lenient standard, we explained in Blackorby v. BNSF Railway Co. that the Eighth Circuit follows Kuduk v. BNSF Ry. Co., 768 F.3d 786 (8th Cir. 2014), not Araujo. 849 F.3d at 721-22. -8- occurred in 2007.6 Loos reported his on-duty injury in 2010, almost two years prior to his dismissal, and he testified in the Peterson-Gunderson hearing approximately ten months prior to his dismissal. By comparison, Loos’s attendance violations began before the protected activities occurred and continued consistently until his discharge. Kuduk explained that more than a temporal proximity is required to find retaliatory motive “especially . . . when the employer was concerned about a problem before the employee engaged in the protected activity.” 768 F.3d at 792 (quotation omitted). Here, not even temporal proximity is present, and BNSF’s concern with Loos’s attendance problems well predated the protected activities. Moreover, the violation that prompted Loos’s dismissal occurred because Loos missed a weekend day for personal reasons and, thus, the violation was unrelated to any protected activity. The thrust of Loos’s argument is that BNSF retaliated against him by refusing to allow him to use the ION code when his injury flared up. Although using the ION code would not have prevented the 2012 attendance violation that ultimately prompted Loos’s dismissal, it would have prevented his 2011 violations.7 Without the 2011 violations, Loos would not have had a sufficient number of active attendance violations to qualify for dismissal under the policy.8 Thus, the argument goes, if BNSF refused the ION code in retaliation for Loos reporting the injury, that 6 Loos testified, and we assume as true for purposes of summary judgment, that he made other safety reports throughout his employment. However, he does not assert or provide evidence that such reports occurred in close proximity to his firing. 7 We take as true for purposes of summary judgment Loos’s testimony that one or both of these violations were due to injury flare-ups for which BNSF denied the ION code. 8 BNSF contends that Loos cannot now challenge his 2011 attendance violations because he admitted the violations and waived formal investigation, and the statute of limitations for such challenge has expired. We need not decide this question, because even if we consider the 2011 violations Loos has not presented sufficient evidence of retaliatory motive. -9- retaliatory motive contributed to his dismissal. However, the evidence does not support the conclusion that BNSF acted with such a retaliatory motive. When Loos requested to use the ION layoff code for flare-ups of his injury, the only medical documentation BNSF had was the letter from Loos’s doctor releasing him to work without restriction. Loos did not provide any medical documentation until his September 2012 FMLA leave request and the November 2012 letter from his doctor explaining that flare-ups would have been occurring during May, June, and July of 2012. BNSF did not have either of these documents in 2011 when it refused the ION code. Rather, the information BNSF had at the time it refused the ION code indicated that Loos was fit for work without restriction.9 See Gunderson, 850 F.3d at 969 (“The critical inquiry in a pretext analysis is . . . whether the employer in good faith believed that the employee was guilty of the conduct justifying discharge.” (quotation omitted)). Loos fails to provide evidence that this reason is inconsistent or pretextual. First, Loos points to testimony asserting that BNSF allowed another employee—Jake Kluver—to use the ION code for absences due to flare-ups of an injury after he was released to work without restriction. However, Loos has not carried his burden to demonstrate that Kluver was “similarly situated in all relevant respects.” See Harvey v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 38 F.3d 968, 972 (8th Cir. 1994). Loos did not present evidence that Kluver failed to provide medical documentation, and without evidence to that effect we cannot conclude that Kluver was similarly situated in all relevant respects and, thus, that his experience demonstrates BNSF acted inconsistently. Loos emphasizes the testimony of Mullins and Joyce, two former BNSF employees who asserted that BNSF unofficially stopped allowing the ION code for 9 Loos also emphasizes that the jury verdict in his FELA claim, which awarded damages for pain, disability, and emotional distress for a period including the 2011 violations, confirms that Loos was attempting to take time off because of his injury. However, this does not illuminate BNSF’s intent at the time it disciplined Loos. -10- injury flare-ups in 2000 when it instituted the attendance policy because of concerns its use would alter BNSF’s injury-reporting obligations under FRSA.10 The district court did not consider Mullins’s and Joyce’s testimony because Loos failed to disclose them as experts at the appropriate time. Loos does not expressly challenge this decision, but even if we consider Mullins’s and Joyce’s testimony, it does not support an inference of retaliatory motive. If BNSF indeed had an across-the-board practice of disallowing the ION code for injury flare-ups, the denial in Loos’s case would not be evidence that BNSF intended to retaliate against him specifically for protected activity. As such, whether or not such a policy, if it existed, would be fair is not at issue here. See Gunderson, 850 F.3d at 970 (“[I]f the discipline was wholly unrelated to protected activity . . . whether it was fairly imposed is not relevant to the FRSA causal analysis.”). Loos also points to a 2011 exchange between himself and Bailey, a supervisor, related to Loos’s ION code request. Loos testified that Bailey refused to authorize the ION code because it was not available to him. When Loos pressed for further explanation, Bailey responded, “It’s just not [available]. We don’t do it anymore.” This statement is susceptible to two interpretations. On the one hand, it supports Mullins’s and Joyce’s testimony that BNSF categorically denied ION code use for flare-ups after 2000. As described above, such a situation does not support an inference of retaliatory motive against Loos. Second, the statement may be interpreted to mean that Loos could not use the ION code anymore because he had been released to work without restriction. That interpretation, likewise, does not support an inference of retaliatory motive because it supports BNSF’s explanation that it denied the ION code because Loos failed to provide the necessary medical documentation. Next, Loos points to an exchange that took place in 2010 or 2011 between Phillip Mullen, the terminal superintendent, and Jeremy Brown, a BNSF switchman and the switchmen’s union local chairman, in which Mullen expressed 10 BNSF strongly contests this assertion. -11- significant frustration with Loos’s low attendance during a monthly local chairmen’s meeting. Nothing in the exchange implies that any scrutiny of Loos’s attendance was a pretext to punish him for protected activities. Loos’s final argument with respect to the 2011 violations consists of the assertion that BNSF should have granted Loos FMLA leave in 2011, even though he was not eligible. This refusal to make a special exception to FMLA requirements, Loos contends, demonstrates retaliatory motive. We disagree. A railroad may refuse to make a policy exception without retaliatory motive, and Loos points to nothing else surrounding the FMLA denial that would indicate retaliatory motive drove that decision. Likewise, the circumstances surrounding Loos’s testimony in the PetersonGunderson hearing ultimately do not support an inference of retaliatory motive. After Loos testified at the hearing, he received an investigation notice for the day he missed to testify and Greg Jaeb, one of his supervisors, asked to see the subpoena. During the exchange, Jaeb opined that “this could be bad for you.” Loos never produced the subpoena, and BNSF canceled the investigation. In order for Jaeb’s statements to constitute evidence of retaliatory motive on the part of BNSF, there must be “proof that a supervisor ‘perform[ed] an act motivated by [discriminatory] animus that is intended by the supervisor to cause an adverse employment action . . . if that act is a proximate cause of the ultimate employment action.” Gunderson, 850 F.3d at 970 n.9 (alterations and omissions in original) (quoting Kuduk, 768 F.3d at 790). Even assuming it expresses retaliatory animus, no evidence in the record supports the conclusion that Jaeb’s statement reflected the intent of BNSF or influenced the ultimate decision-maker. BNSF rescinded the investigation notice shortly after the exchange, and the attendance violation that led to Loos’s dismissal was completely unrelated. Loos presented no evidence that Jaeb influenced John Wright, the BNSF investigator who presided over the November 2012 investigation hearing, or that the investigation itself resulted from Jaeb unfairly reporting Loos to superiors. See -12- Ludlow v. BNSF Ry. Co., 788 F.3d 794, 802 (8th Cir. 2015) (finding state-law retaliation where hostile supervisors provided the only source of information to the decision-maker, who in turn rubber-stamped their recommendations); Richardson v. Sugg, 448 F.3d 1046, 1060 (8th Cir. 2006) (explaining that if a decision-maker “makes an independent determination as to whether an employee should be terminated and does not serve as a mere conduit for another’s discriminatory motives,” that person’s discriminatory motive is not a contributing factor). Finally, Loos points to two exchanges during the investigation hearing that he contends demonstrate his dismissal was “preordained” and driven by retaliatory motive. First, Loos argues that Wright was reluctant to admit into evidence Loos’s September 2012 FMLA application and the November 6, 2012 doctor’s note. This reluctance, Loos contends, demonstrates that the dismissal was “preordained.” However, the record demonstrates that Wright merely questioned the relevance of medical documentation from September and November to a violation that occurred during May, June, and July. After stating this reservation, Wright admitted the evidence. The record does not support Loos’s characterization of Wright’s conduct as demonstrating he intended to discharge Loos regardless of what the evidence showed. Second, Loos points to an exchange between Loos’s union representative, Jeff Pientka, and Wright. When Pientka harangued Wright at length for reasons unrelated to the subject of the investigation, Wright informed Loos that he would ask Loos to find a different union representative if Pientka could not refrain from disrupting the investigation. After Wright allowed Loos and Pientka a recess to confer, the investigation proceeded without further disruption. Loos characterizes this exchange as intimidating and evincing retaliatory intent, but the record does not support that conclusion. In sum, the evidence does not raise a genuine dispute that retaliatory motive prompted by protected activity contributed to Loos’s dismissal. As a result, Loos has -13- failed to make a prima facie case and, accordingly, we affirm the district court’s decision to grant BNSF summary judgment on Loos’s FRSA retaliation claim.