Snapp v. BNSF Ry., 889 F.3d 1088 (9th Cir. 2018)

Danny Snapp sued his former employer, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Co. (“BNSF”), for failure to accommodate his alleged disability in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”). Snapp worked as a division trainmaster, but due to “tiredness and low energy,” he went to a doctor and was diagnosed with sleep apnea; Snapp had two surgeries in unsuccessful attempts to correct the condition. After Snapp was deemed to be totally disabled, he applied for long-term disability benefits, which he received for approximately five years before those benefits were terminated due to an absence of evidence of continuing disability. Snapp was later told he had 60 days to secure another position with BNSF or his employment would be terminated. After Snapp failed to secure a position within the 60-day period, his employment was terminated. He then filed suit alleging BNSF’s failure to reasonably accommodate his disability, and a jury returned a verdict in favor of BNSF. In this appeal, Snapp asserted that the district court had given erroneous jury instructions. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the judgment against Snapp on the ground that at trial, a plaintiff bears the burden of proving (not just of producing evidence) that the employer could have made a reasonable accommodation that would have enabled the plaintiff to perform the essential functions of the job and that Snapp had failed to satisfy that burden. The Court also held that the employer was not bound by the admissions made in a deposition of a corporate designee pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 30(b)(6) such that the jury should not have been allowed to consider other evidence.

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Photo of Tony Oncidi Tony Oncidi

Anthony J. Oncidi is the co-chair of the Labor & Employment Law Department and heads the West Coast Labor & Employment group in the firm’s Los Angeles office.

Tony represents employers and management in all aspects of labor relations and employment law, including…

Anthony J. Oncidi is the co-chair of the Labor & Employment Law Department and heads the West Coast Labor & Employment group in the firm’s Los Angeles office.

Tony represents employers and management in all aspects of labor relations and employment law, including litigation and preventive counseling, wage and hour matters, including class actions, wrongful termination, employee discipline, Title VII and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, executive employment contract disputes, sexual harassment training and investigations, workplace violence, drug testing and privacy issues, Sarbanes-Oxley claims and employee raiding and trade secret protection. A substantial portion of Tony’s practice involves the defense of employers in large class actions, employment discrimination, harassment and wrongful termination litigation in state and federal court as well as arbitration proceedings, including FINRA matters.

Tony is recognized as a leading lawyer by such highly respected publications and organizations as the Los Angeles Daily JournalThe Hollywood Reporter, and Chambers USA, which gives him the highest possible rating (“Band 1”) for Labor & Employment.  According to Chambers USA, clients say Tony is “brilliant at what he does… He is even keeled, has a high emotional IQ, is a great legal writer and orator, and never gives up.” Other clients report:  “Tony has an outstanding reputation” and he is “smart, cost effective and appropriately aggressive.” Tony is hailed as “outstanding,” particularly for his “ability to merge top-shelf lawyerly advice with pragmatic business acumen.” He is highly respected in the industry, with other commentators lauding him as a “phenomenal strategist” and “one of the top employment litigators in the country.”

“Tony is the author of the treatise titled Employment Discrimination Depositions (Juris Pub’g 2020; www.jurispub.com), co-author of Proskauer on Privacy (PLI 2020), and, since 1990, has been a regular columnist for the official publication of the Labor and Employment Law Section of the State Bar of California and the Los Angeles Daily Journal.

Tony has been a featured guest on Fox 11 News and CBS News in Los Angeles. He has been interviewed and quoted by leading national media outlets such as The National Law JournalBloomberg News, The New York Times, and Newsweek and Time magazines. Tony is a frequent speaker on employment law topics for large and small groups of employers and their counsel, including the Society for Human Resource Management (“SHRM”), PIHRA, the National CLE Conference, National Business Institute, the Employment Round Table of Southern California (Board Member), the Council on Education in Management, the Institute for Corporate Counsel, the State Bar of California, the California Continuing Education of the Bar Program and the Los Angeles and Beverly Hills Bar Associations. He has testified as an expert witness regarding wage and hour issues as well as the California Fair Employment and Housing Act and has served as a faculty member of the National Employment Law Institute. He has served as an arbitrator in an employment discrimination matter.

Tony is an appointed Hearing Examiner for the Los Angeles Police Commission Board of Rights and has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law and a guest lecturer at USC Law School and a guest lecturer at UCLA Law School.