Opinion ID: 170920
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Explanatory Inconsistencies

Text: Mr. Hysten also presented evidence of conceptual inconsistencies in Burlington Northern's stated reasons for the discharge. See Bausman, 252 F.3d at 1120. Drawing all inferences in favor of Mr. Hysten, a reasonable jury could seize upon these inconsistencies to find Burlington Northern's explanations to be false and to infer a retaliatory intent from their falsity. See Reeves, 530 U.S. at 147, 120 S.Ct. 2097; Bausman, 252 F.3d at 1120. First, the testimony at trial casts doubt upon whether Mr. Hysten was fired for failing to report immediately the origin of his injury as on-duty in violation of Rule S-28.2.5.App. at 1513. Mr. Hysten's testimony indicates that he reported his injury, and what he knew about its origin, with a reasonable degree of immediacy. Mr. Hysten testified that he did not feel the effect of his injury until the morning of April 7, 1999, when he awoke at home. Two days later, on April 9, 1999, after unsuccessfully seeking emergency medical treatment, Mr. Hysten notified his front line supervisor that he pulled a back muscle. Mr. Hysten further testified that, on April 12, 1999, the next business day, he went to work and filled out a medical-status form indicating that he suffered a back injury of unknown cause. App. at 1058. Mr. Hysten did so after discussing his uncertainty concerning the cause of his injury with Ms. Morse, who agreed with Mr. Hysten that the unknown cause entry was appropriate. Id. at 1059. In each subsequent form and conversation predating the May 21, 1999 meeting (with the exception of the anomalous April 21, 1999 medical-status form) Mr. Hysten affirmatively described the genesis of his back injury as unknown. Of course, it matters not what Mr. Hysten did, but what his supervisors actually believed. The testimony of Mr. Hysten's supervisors weakens Burlington Northern's stated Rule S-28.2.5 justification. Mr. Hall represented that it would not be a violation of any company policy if an employee did not know the origin of his injury and later reported his injury as occurring on-duty. Mr. Johnson also testified that he did not recall telling any other employee that he or she had to declare an injury of unknown origin as either on-duty or off-duty. Mr. Johnson observed that Burlington Northern does like to try to nail it down from a preventative standpoint, [to] find out what it is we need to do differently so it doesn't happen again. App. at 1877 (emphasis added). But he noted that to comply with Rule S-28.2.5, an employee who suffers an injury of possibly unknown origin must only tell Burlington Northern that something has happened.  App. at 1882 (emphasis added). Further undermining the Rule S-28.2.5 justification was the nature of Burlington Northern's leave-of-absence forms which Mr. Hysten completed on April 15, 1999 and April 26, 1999. Unlike the medical-status forms, the leave-of-absence forms permit an employee to check a box marked other, rather than declare the injury to be on-duty or off-duty. App. at 1506, 1510. The design of the form indicates Burlington Northern's general approval of reporting an injury of indeterminate etiology. Going further, it also suggests Burlington Northern's belief that reporting an injury of unknown origin in a timely fashion  even when the exact origin can only be pinpointed later  satisfies an employee's obligations under Rule S-28.2.5. Additionally, Mr. Johnson authorized Mr. Hysten's requests for a leave of absence, despite Mr. Hysten's identification of the cause of his injury as unknown. Therefore, the jury was entitled to conclude that Burlington Northern did not truly believe that Mr. Hysten waited too long to report where his injury occurred. Second, the testimony at trial also challenged the legitimacy of Burlington Northern's gross dishonesty justification for the termination  i.e., that Mr. Hysten was fired for withholding or concealing information regarding the accident from his supervisors in violation of Rules S-28.13 and S-28.2.7. For instance, Mr. Hysten claims to have informed Mr. Kennedy that he suffered an injury of unknown origin when he completed his initial paperwork. Mr. Hall testified that he did not believe that Mr. Hysten was dishonest during the May 17, 1999 meeting, and Mr. Johnson conceded as much with respect both to the May 17, 1999 and the May 21, 1999 meetings. In sum, a reasonable jury could find that Mr. Hysten was candid with all of his supervisors throughout the process. Indeed, it was this candor  stressing that he was attempting to ascertain the true cause of his injury  that, according to Mr. Hysten, ultimately led to Mr. Johnson's command that he declare the origin of the injury. Tellingly, Mr. Johnson later conceded that Mr. Hysten might not have engaged in grossly dishonest conduct. See App. at 1901 (But is it gross dishonesty? I can't tell you that that's the way it was.). Finally, Mr. Hysten presented evidence to discredit Burlington Northern's primary reason for the discharge  falsifying or misrepresenting an on-duty injury. For instance, Mr. Hysten testified that, despite informing Mr. Johnson that he was seeking medical advice as to the cause of the injury, Mr. Johnson issued an ultimatum during the May 21, 1999 meeting: report the origin of the injury now or else. App. at 1108-09. This ultimatum, which implied termination for noncompliance, intimidated Mr. Hysten into identifying the origin of the injury. Id. at 1109, 1193. A reasonable jury could infer that Mr. Johnson knew that Mr. Hysten did not falsify an on-duty injury because Mr. Johnson was the person who forced him into prematurely classifying the origin of his injury  without complete information  to preserve his FELA claim. A reasonable jury could deduce that compelled decision-making, after full disclosure, does not involve the intent to deceive and that Mr. Johnson should have known that. See Bausman, 252 F.3d at 1121 (noting that Kansas law is that the employer is bound by what it knew or should have known (internal quotation marks omitted)). Indeed, when viewed in conjunction with the evidence discussed supra regarding Burlington Northern's injury-free incentives, a reasonable jury could infer that Mr. Johnson was pressuring Mr. Hysten not merely to identify the origin of the injury, but to identify the origin of the injury as off-duty. True, evidence existed that supported Burlington Northern's claimed misrepresentation rationale  Mr. Hysten's second medical-status form, dated April 21, 1999, stated that the injury occurred off-duty. App. at 1068-69, 1503. Nonetheless, the April 21, 1999 form did not preclude the jury from finding Burlington Northern's justification to be pretextual. Mr. Hysten testified that the April 21, 1999 characterization was a mistake and that he filled out each preceding and subsequent form in accordance with his belief that the injury was unknown. More importantly, Burlington Northern seemed to treat the April 21, 1999 form as a mistake, taking no action when Mr. Hysten subsequently reclassified his injury from off-duty to unknown. Burlington Northern never accused Mr. Hysten of lying when he filled out his April 26, 1999 leave-of-absence form or his May 14, 1999 medical-status form, both of which identified the cause of his injury as unknown. Nor did Burlington Northern accuse Mr. Hysten of falsifying the origin of his injury after the May 17, 2001 meeting, when he again repeated to his supervisors that he was unsure of where it occurred. It was only after Mr. Hysten expressly identified the injury as on-duty that Burlington Northern invoked its misrepresentation rationale. Therefore, a reasonable jury could believe that Burlington Northern's disciplinary action was not based upon Mr. Hysten's deviation from his April 21, 1999 off-duty representation, but, rather, upon the nature of the deviation  the fact that Mr. Hysten deviated in a manner that could trigger FELA liability (i.e., to an on-duty injury).