Union Pacific Worker’s Bias Suit Wasn’t Tolled by Class Action

A Union Pacific Railroad Co. employee, barred from working as a conductor after failing tests assessing his ability to identify train signal colors, can no longer pursue his disability discrimination claim because the time to do so has lapsed, a Texas federal court ruled.

The decision is the latest involving a worker who was once part of a one-time 7,000-plus-member class action over the railroad’s fitness-for-duty program who later sued individually or as part of a smaller group after the class was decertified by the Eighth Circuit in March 2020.

Unlike some other Union Pacific employees, James Bien’s situation didn’t ...