In February 2016 — two months before the plaintiff failed Union Pacific’s color vision tests in April 2016 — Quinton Harris and five other named plaintiffs filed their first amended complaint, bringing disability discrimination claims against Union Pacific on behalf of current and former Union Pacific employees, specifically:

“Individuals who were removed from service over their objection, and/or suffered another adverse employment action, during their employment with Union Pacific for reasons related to a Fitness-for-Duty evaluation at any time from 300 days before the earliest date that a named Plaintiff filed an administrative charge of discrimination to the resolution of this action.”

Over two years later, the Harris plaintiffs moved for class certification under a slightly revised class definition:

“All individuals who have been or will be subject to a fitness-for-duty examination as a result of a reportable health event at any time from September 18, 2014 until the final resolution of this action.”

In February 2019, the District Court granted class certification using the revised class definition. The district court also adopted the Harris plaintiffs’ proposed class list and ordered that notices be sent to the listed individuals, which included Zaragoza. Union Pacific appealed the certification to the Eighth Circuit, which decertified the class in March of 2020.

Zaragoza filed his disability discrimination charge with the EEOC on March 8, 2020, just before the Eighth Circuit decertified the Harris class. After the EEOC completed its review of his case in October 2021, Zaragoza filed the present action. The District Court dismissed the failure-to-accommodate claim as time-barred on a motion to dismiss, and the remaining claims via summary judgment, finding that the Harris district court’s February 2019 certification order ended tolling for his claims.

The U.S. Fifth Circuit, however, reversed:

Initially, the Court explained that: “Prior to class certification, the pertinent class definition in a class action is drawn from the plaintiffs’ operative complaint(s). That class definition is not disturbed by precertification motions practice during the life cycle of a class action. And at the point a district court certifies a class, the certified class definition supersedes any previously articulated ones. That certified class persists – even through appeal – until the class is decertified or the case is otherwise resolved.”

In this particular case: “Union Pacific consistently objected that this class definition was overbroad, and the Eighth Circuit ultimately agreed on appeal. But Union Pacific’s position and its success on appeal only support the conclusion that the class as certified was expansive for tolling purposes. The upshot seems plain: The Harris district court’s certified class included Zaragoza as a member, and the court as well as those parties so treated him. That alone could, and perhaps should, end the inquiry. However, in this action, Union Pacific nonetheless contends that Zaragoza falls outside of the certified class based on the class definition. But even considering the matter afresh, we conclude that Zaragoza fell within Harris’s certified class definition, as revised from the one proposed in February 2016. To review, he failed an Ishihara color vision test in 2016. This result indicated that an aspect of Zaragoza’s health, namely his color vision, had deteriorated since his last recertification and warranted further review. Under Union Pacific’s fitness-for-duty program, this ‘reportable health event’ triggered a follow up test using the light cannon. When Zaragoza also failed the light cannon test, he suffered an adverse employment action — the loss of his job. Therefore, Zaragoza is an ‘individual who had been … subject to a fitness-for-duty examination as a result of a reportable health event’ during the class period encompassed by the certified class definition….

“Ending American Pipe tolling with anything short of unambiguous narrowing would undermine the balance contemplated by the Supreme Court by encouraging putative or certified class members to rush to intervene as individuals or to file individual actions. Indeed, the class action mechanism would not succeed in its goal of reducing repetitious and unnecessary filings if members of a putative class were required to file individual suits to prevent their claims from expiring. Based on our assessment of Zaragoza’s claims, the class definition certified by the Harris district court included him. At least, given the record before us, Zaragoza was not ‘unambiguously excluded’ from the Harris certified class. Thus, Zaragoza’s claims were tolled during the pendency of the Harris certified class.”

 

Zaragoza v. Union Pacific, No.23-50194, 2024 WL 3755612 (5th Cir. Aug. 12, 2024).