Harris v. Union Pacific Railroad Co., No. 19-1514 (8th Cir. 2020)
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The Eighth Circuit reversed the district court's order certifying a class under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 23(b)(2) and (b)(3), holding that the district court abused is discretion in finding that plaintiffs met the cohesiveness, and predominance and superiority requirements. In this case, plaintiff and other current and former employees of Union Pacific moved to certify a class action for a claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The district court granted a hybrid class defined to include all employees who have been or will be subject to a fitness-for-duty evaluation because of a reportable health event from September 18, 2014 until the end of the case.
The court held that the individualized inquiries in this case cannot be addressed in a manner consistent with Rule 23; determining whether the policy is job related and consistent with business necessity requires answering many individual questions; both the text of the ADA and the record evidence demonstrate that the district court would be required to consider the unique circumstances of each position in question to determine whether the policy is unlawfully discriminatory; and thus these individualized questions defeated both predominance and cohesiveness.
Court Description: [Before Gruender, Author, with Kelly and Erickson, Circuit Judges] Civil case - Class Actions. The district court abused its discretion in finding that plaintiffs met the Rule 23(b)2) and (b)(3) requirements and in certifying a class of all employees who have been or will be subject to fitness-for-duty evaluation because of a reportable health event from September, 2014 until the end of the class; the individualized inquiries cannot be addressed in a manner consistent with Rule 23; both the text of the ADA and the record demonstrate that the district court would be required to consider the unique circumstances of each position in question to determine whether the company's policy was unlawfully discriminatory; this inherently individualized process defeats both the predominance and cohesiveness requirements of Rule 23. Judge Kelly, concurring.
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