A major U.S. appeals court has breathed new life into a workplace discrimination battle, ruling that BNSF Railway must face allegations it allowed years of unchecked harassment against women at its western Nebraska railyard.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) says the railroad’s Alliance facility was no ordinary job site—it was a hostile gauntlet where female employees were hit with crude sexual remarks, lewd graffiti on locomotives, filthy bathrooms, and even grotesque intimidation tactics, including a dead bird left on a conductor’s train.
According to the lawsuit, the misconduct stretched from 2011 to 2022, targeting train conductor Rena Merker and other women who worked alongside overwhelmingly male crews. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Omaha rejected an earlier judge’s dismissal of the case, saying the EEOC should not have been required to prove identical harassment incidents across multiple women at the same time.
Circuit Judge Lavenski Smith, writing for a three-judge panel, said the evidence could allow a jury to find the harassment “objectively severe and pervasive,” dismantling the lower court’s view that the behavior was too “sporadic” or excusable because of the railyard’s rough culture.
Merker, whose experiences were central to the complaint, passed away in January 2024, but the case presses forward. The decision now sends the dispute back to federal district court in Omaha.
BNSF, owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, has yet to comment. Berkshire itself is not a defendant in the case.
