## Facts

- Ron Ryan worked for Capital Contractors, Inc. intermittently since 1973 and was rehired in 2005; he was terminated on December 1, 2008.
- Ryan had significant cognitive limitations and a speech stutter, with documented difficulty reading, writing, and communicating.
- Ryan did not tell management he had a disability; management viewed him as “slow” but capable, and he performed assigned work.
- Ryan worked as a sandblaster under paint-room foreman Troy Collins, who worked alongside employees and had limited disciplinary authority.
- The workplace commonly involved joking, name-calling, and physical horseplay, alongside a known company policy that fighting resulted in termination.
- Ryan alleged Collins repeatedly used derogatory slurs referencing Ryan’s cognitive limitations; Ryan frequently replied with insults directed at Collins.
- On November 26, 2008, after verbal sparring and physical contact, Ryan struck Collins; for summary judgment the court assumed Ryan’s account that Collins provoked the incident.
- Capital Contractors terminated Ryan for violating its no-fighting rule.
- Ryan sued under the ADA and Nebraska Fair Employment Practices Act (and initially the ADEA); the district court granted summary judgment to the employer, and Ryan appealed only the ADA and NFEPA rulings.

## Issues

1. Whether Ryan produced sufficient evidence that the employer’s stated reason for discharge (violation of a no-fighting policy) was a pretext for disability discrimination under the ADA and NFEPA.
2. Whether the alleged disability-related insults and conduct were sufficiently severe or pervasive, and sufficiently disability-based, to establish a hostile work environment under the ADA and NFEPA imputable to the employer.

## Decision

- The Eighth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Capital Contractors.
- The court held the employer articulated a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for discharge—Ryan’s admitted fighting in violation of a known rule—and Ryan failed to raise a triable issue of pretext or discriminatory intent.
- The court held Ryan failed to establish an actionable disability-based hostile work environment because the record did not show harassment that was sufficiently severe or pervasive, or adequately shown to be “because of” disability, in the context of reciprocal, coarse workplace banter.
- The court applied the same analysis to the NFEPA claim because Nebraska law generally tracks federal standards for analogous discrimination claims.

## Legal Principles

- Summary judgment is reviewed de novo, with the record viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmovant.
- Under the McDonnell Douglas framework, once an employer offers a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason, the plaintiff must present evidence permitting a reasonable inference that the reason is false and that discrimination was the real reason.
- A uniformly applied workplace rule (including a no-fighting policy) can be a legitimate reason for termination even if the employee claims provocation, absent evidence of discriminatory application or pretext.
- An ADA hostile work environment claim requires proof of unwelcome harassment because of disability that is sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the terms or conditions of employment, along with a basis to impute liability to the employer.
- Evidence of reciprocal name-calling and generally coarse workplace conduct may be insufficient, without more, to show an objectively hostile environment or disability-based causation.

## Conclusion

The court upheld the employer’s decision to terminate Ryan for violating a known no-fighting rule, finding no evidence that the reason was a cover for disability discrimination and no actionable disability-based hostile work environment under either federal or Nebraska law.


Ryan v. Cap. Contractors, Inc., 679 F.3d 772 (8th Cir. 2012)