Genise Kincannon, et al. v. American Airlines<

Dallas, Texas, civil rights lawyers represented the Plaintiffs, claiming that their rights were violated.

Several United Airlines employees allege that United failed to offer
reasonable religious and medical accommodations to its COVID-19 vaccine
mandate, thereby unlawfully discriminating against them and all others sim-
ilarly situated.Plaintiffs moved to certify three classes of employees ag-
grieved by United’s polices.

* * *

“The class action is ‘an exception to the usual rule that litigation is
conducted by and on behalf of the individual named parties only.’” Comcast
Corp. v. Behrend, 569 U.S. 27, 33 (2013) (quoting Califano v. Yamasaki, 442
U.S. 682, 700–01 (1979)). A party seeking to certify a class “must affirma-
tively demonstrate” that the requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
23 are met. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 564 U.S. 338, 350 (2011). Specifi-
cally, he must show that “(1) the class is so numerous that joinder of all mem-
bers is impracticable; (2) there are questions of law or fact common to the
class; (3) the claims or defenses of the representative parties are typical of the
claims or defenses of the class; and (4) the representative parties will fairly
and adequately protect the interests of the class.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a).
Rule 23 also implicitly requires that the class members be ascertainable. John
v. Nat’l Sec. Fire & Cas. Co., 501 F.3d 443, 445 (5th Cir. 2007).

In addition to these prerequisites, the party must also demonstrate
that the putative class complies with one of Rule 23(b)’s requirements.
Sampson, 83 F.4th at 418 (“Certification requires plaintiffs to satisfy all re-
quirements of Rule 23(a)—numerosity, commonality, typicality, and ade-
quacy—and at least one of the three requirements listed in Rule 23(b).”).
Here, Plaintiffs sought certification under Rule 23(b)(2) and Rule 23(b)(3).
We start with the Rule 23(b)(2) class and then consider the three Rule
23(b)(3) subclasses.

The district court rejected two of those classes
but certified a modified subclass of religious-accommodation seekers whom
United accommodated with unpaid leave.

Affirmed