Justia U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff-Appellant John Conger appealed the Commissioner's denial of his application for supplemental social security income benefits. Plaintiff applied for benefits in 2005 alleging he was unable to work because of degenerative disk disease, spondylosis, arthritis, depression, and problems sleeping. His application was denied at the administrative level after a hearing before an administrative law judge (ALJ). The ALJ further found that Plaintiff had the residual functional capacity (RFC) to perform simple and routine medium exertional work that required no more than occasional stooping and no contact with the public. After the Appeals Council denied his request for review, Plaintiff filed his complaint in the district court. The district court adopted the report and affirmed the Commissioner's denial of benefits. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit found no error in the ALJ's RFC finding and that the decision was supported by substantial evidence. The Court affirmed the district court and Commissioner's rulings. View "Conger v. Astrue" on Justia Law

Pro se Plaintiff-Appellant Richard Dumas appealed the dismissal of his workplace discrimination suit against Proctor and Gamble (P&G). Plaintiff was employed as a contractor assigned to work at P&G's Kansas City manufacturing plant in 2005. Between 2005 and 2007, Plaintiff alleged he was subjected to discrimination in the workplace including the use of racial epithets, misuse of company disciplinary proceedings, and an incident in which a chair was pulled away as Dumas was attempting to sit on it. Dumas resigned in November of 2007. In 2011, he filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) alleging discrimination. The EEOC closed the claim as untimely. Plaintiff then filed a complaint in district court against P&G, and P&G moved to dismiss, alleging Plaintiff failed to timely exhaust his administrative remedies. Plaintiff responded that he was given bad advice by an unnamed EEOC agent. The district court concluded that Dumas failed to meet the narrow requirements for equitable tolling and dismissed the claim. Finding that Plaintiff failed to carry his burden of establishing that an EEOC agent actually misled him, and insufficiently present his state law claims, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgement in dismissing Plaintiff's case. View "Dumas v. Proctor & Gamble" on Justia Law

Plaintiff-Appellant Bruce Field filed a wrongful termination action against his former employer the Board of Water Commissioners for the City and County of Denver (Denver Water), alleging three "1983" retaliation claims. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Denver water and dismissed the case with prejudice. Plaintiff was a project manager. He came to suspect misconduct between senior engineers and several contractors at three projects he was working on. Plaintiff expressed his concerns to his superiors, who responded that the matters were "taken care of." Denver Water assured Mr. Field they were retaining a national auditing firm to conduct an external review, but he alleged the firm was unqualified and biased. Plaintiff's supervisor issued a recommendation for corrective action against Plaintiff, noting that an internal auditor had "seen nothing that could not be corrected" at the end of the projects. Further, the supervisor reported that Plaintiff was insubordinate and "willing to go to extreme lengths to prove his unreasonable belief that the contractors and Denver Water management are corrupt." The supervisor recommended that Plaintiff be terminated. Finding that the district court "accurately and thoroughly examined Mr. Field's claims and concluded they were all meritless," the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court's decision to dismiss Plaintiff's case. View "Field v. Board of Water Commissioner" on Justia Law

Appellant Taissiya Oleyniikova , an employee of the State of Colorado's Department of Human Services (DHS) Office of Information Tenchology Services brought a 42 U.S.C. 1983 action for damages against the DHS' executive director and some of the agency's employees (Defendants). Appellant challenged the grant of summary judgement in favor of DHS. Plaintiff alleged she was retaliated against in violation of the First Amendment. Plaintiff emailed a supervisor stating that she felt "insulted" by another co-worker, because that co-worker accused her of lying. Over the next few months, Plaintiff sought a promotion within her department, but claimed that this attempt was thwarted. Plaintiff filed suit in 2009 alleging that Defendants retaliated against Plaintiff in violation of her right to freedom of speech. The district court granted summary judgment to Defendants on both claims. Plaintiff then appealed the district court's ruling on the retaliation claim only. Finding that Plaintiff's statements were not on a matter of public concern, the Tenth Circuit concluded Defendants were entitled to summary judgment.

Petitioner Compass Environmental, Inc. challenged a final order of the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (Commission) which found a serious safety regulation violation and assessed a $5500 penalty against it. Specifically, the Commission held that Compass failed to train a now-deceased employee to recognize and avoid an electrocution hazard presented by a high-voltage overhead powerline at his worksite. On appeal to the Tenth Circuit, Compass argued that the Commission failed to apply the correct legal test and erred in concluding that a reasonably prudent employer would have anticipated this employee's potential exposure to the power line. "Although Compass might not have been able to predict the manner in which [the employee] would have been exposed to this hazard," the Tenth Circuit concluded that the Commission did not abuse its discretion in holding that Compass should have trained the employee on the fatal danger posed by the high-voltage lines located in the vicinity of his work area. The Court affirmed the Commission's decision.

Plaintiff-Appellee Denise Zaricor-Ritchie appealed the Commissioner's denial of disability benefits and Supplement Security Income. Plaintiff claimed she was disabled by bipolar disorder and depression. After administrative denials of her claims for benefits, she had two hearings before an ALJ, who concluded she was not disabled at step four of the five-step sequential evaluation process. Plaintiff raised three issues on appeal: (1) the ALJ erred in his treatment of the medical source evidence; (2) the ALJ erred in his credibility assessment; and (3) the ALJ failed to perform a proper analysis in concluding that she could return to her past relevant work as a dishwasher. Taking each of Plaintiff's arguments in turn, the Tenth Circuit found that the ALJ's analysis was sufficient to support its decision. The Court affirmed the Commissioner's denial of benefits.

After developing pain in his neck and shoulders, Petitioner Gordon George was diagnosed with cancer in 2003 and underwent surgery and radiotherapy. During his recovery, he continued to experience pain spanning from his neck to his shoulder and arm. Petitioner applied for disability and supplemental security income benefits. After many and various hearings, an administrative law judge (ALJ) concluded that for the period June 1, 2003 through July 31, 2005, Petitioner was disabled during that period. But the ALJ further found that Petitioner's condition improved dramatically over time and that by August 1, 2005, he no longer met any disability listing. The Appeals Council denied review, making the ALJ's decision final. On appeal to the Tenth Circuit, Petitioner raised several challenges to the ALJ's determination that he suffered no legally cognizable disability after August 2005. Upon review, the Court rejected all those challenges, and affirmed for substantially the reasons given by the district court, with one exception. The Court found that the ALJ erred by failing to consider whether, after August 1, 2005, Petitioner suffered from a mental disability. In our case, by contrast, the ALJ has not made any factual findings "one way or the other" about the existence, severity, or functional limitations, if any, imposed by Petitioner's mental condition: "[i]t's entirely possible the ALJ on remand will find Mr. George's mental health issues have no impact on his ability to work." The Court remanded the case to the district court for further proceedings.

Plaintiff Donna Saterlee appealed a district court order that affirmed the Commissioner of Social Security's decision to deny social security disability and supplemental security income benefits. The Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) denied benefits at the last step of the five-step process for determining disability. Plaintiff argued that the ALJ erred by (1) improperly rejecting her hand impairment as medically nondeterminable at step two and consequently not including it in the RFC that formed the basis of the dispositive hypothetical to the Vocational Expert; and (2) failing to perform a proper credibility analysis in determining that complaints of limitations other than, or in excess of, those later included in the RFC were not credible. The Tenth Circuit found that the ALJ was "undeniably wrong" about the lack of documented medical evidence of Plaintiff's condition that gave rise to the alleged numbness, "undercutting the categorical rejection of such an impairment on this threshold basis." The Court remanded the case for an administrative decision that properly accounted for all of the evidence of record.

Plaintiff-Appellant Kelli Mike was an employee of Leisure Village Health Care Center. Leisure Village obtained a urine sample from Plaintiff and submitted it to Defendant-Appellee Professional Clinical Laboratory, Inc. (ProLab) for processing. Plaintiff's test results came back positive for marijuana. Leisure Village reported the results to the Oklahoma Board of Nursing (the Board). The Board placed Plaintiff's nursing license on probation and later revoked it. Plaintiff filed a complaint in federal court alleging that ProLab violated the Oklahoma Standards for Workplace Drug and Alcohol Testing Act (Okla. Stat. Ann. tit. 40 sec. 551-565 (West 2011)), and committed gross negligence during the drug-testing process. The district court granted summary judgment to ProLab after concluding that the civil remedy provision in the Testing Act did not apply to testing facilities and that Plaintiff failed to establish that ProLab committed gross negligence. Upon review of the trial court record, the Tenth Circuit found that a rational jury could conclude that ProLab was aware that Leisure Village previously disregarded the limits of its contract by requesting ProLab to perform an unauthorized employee drug screen, and also was aware that Leisure Village disregarded the collection procedures for forensic drug testing outlined in the Testing Act. The Court found that ProLab was not entitled to judgment as a matter of law on the question of causation because the foreseeability of any intervening causes was a question of fact for a jury to resolve. Because the district court resolved this claim on the causation element, which involved disputed issues of fact, summary judgment was improper. The Court affirmed the district court's judgment in favor of ProLab on the Testing Act claim, but reversed the district court's judgment on the gross negligence claim. The case was remanded for further proceedings.

Plaintiff-Appellant Mayra Carrera was a trimmer in a Tyson meat processing plant in Kansas. One day, four of her co-workers made sexual gestures toward her by "moving and shaking their hips." When Plaintiff complained, a manager immediately spoke to the co-workers. No further incidents occurred, but Plaintiff felt ostracized by employees keeping their distance. Plaintiff asked for a transfer to another plant. Despite the transfer, Plaintiff filed suit alleging a hostile work environment in violation of Title VII. The district court granted summary judgment to Tyson. On appeal, Plaintiff argued that the district court erred by focusing only on the gesturing incident and ignoring the fact that afterward her co-workers ostracized her. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit found that the district court did consider this aspect of Plaintiff's claim "correctly observing that standoffish, unfriendly, and unapproachable behavior" was insufficient to establish an objectively hostile work environment.