Heim v. BNSF Railway, No. 15-3532 (8th Cir. 2017)
Annotate this CaseAfter plaintiff was seriously injured on the job, BNSF disciplined him for violations of BNSF rules that led to his injury. Plaintiff filed suit, alleging that BNSF's discipline violated the employee-protections provision of the Federal Railroad Safety Act, 49 U.S.C. 20109(a)(4). The court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for BNSF, concluding that plaintiff failed to establish that his supervisors intentionally retaliated against him for filing his injury report. In this case, without more specific evidence of an improper retaliatory motive, the court found that plaintiff failed to establish a prima facie case.
Court Description: Melloy, Author, with Colloton and Shepherd, Circuit Judges] Civil case - Federal Railroad Safety Act. The district court correctly determined that plaintiff must show intentional retaliation in order to prevail on his claim that his discipline violated the employee-protections provisions of the Act, and it did not err in granting defendant's motion for summary judgment on the ground that plaintiff had failed to produce sufficient evidence of intentional retaliation. See Kuduk v. BNSF Railway Co., 768 F.3d 786 (8th Cir. 2014).
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