Our runners up for Litigator of the Week include Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher partner Tom Dupree, who persuaded the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit to reverse and decertify a massive disability-discrimination class action, Harris v. Union Pacific Railroad Company.
In February of 2019, the district court in Nebraska certified a class of more than 7,000 current and former Union Pacific employees who alleged the company’s methods of ensuring that workers in safety-critical jobs are fit for duty violated the ADA. On appeal, the Eighth Circuit de-certified the class, ruling that determining whether Union Pacific’s policy was discriminatory will require individualized inquiries that turn on the nature of the job and the employee’s disability.
