The court cracked the door open - but only after the worker reshaped his case
A federal judge let Amtrak reopen discovery on an employee's new retaliation claims but refused a broader do-over in his disability bias case.
The ruling, issued July 29, 2026, by a federal court in Washington, DC, is procedural - not a finding on whether Amtrak did anything wrong. Still, it sends a clear signal about how far employers can reopen a case once a worker reshapes their claims late.
The dispute began in February 2022, when a former Amtrak employee sued the rail operator under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the federal law protecting workers with disabilities. He alleged discrimination, retaliation, and failure to accommodate. The case centered on how Amtrak handled his medical leave and surgery.
According to his filings, Amtrak told him in April 2021 it would fill his position if he could not return, later replaced him, and eventually designated him ineligible for rehire. He claims that rehire designation was retaliation for taking protected leave. Amtrak has not been found liable, and the underlying claims remain unproven.
After the court refused to throw out the case, the employee amended his complaint to broaden his retaliation theory, adding the ineligible-for-rehire allegation. Amtrak then asked to reopen fact-finding to explore the new material.
The court split the decision. It allowed limited new discovery, but only on the fresh retaliation claims - reasoning that Amtrak had good cause not to have chased those facts earlier, since they surfaced only after discovery closed.
It drew the line at everything else. Amtrak wanted to revisit older allegations too, but the court found the company had ample time to explore them during the original discovery window, which ran from March 2022 to May 2023. Some of the "new" claims, the court noted, closely tracked the original complaint - and Amtrak had already taken discovery on them. The employee's lawyer called the broader request "a second bite at the apple after an adverse summary-judgment ruling."
The order turns on a familiar point of litigation practice: when a worker expands their claims late, employers can probe the genuinely new allegations, but not relitigate ground they could have covered the first time. The court weighed the company's diligence most heavily.
The underlying case also touches recurring workplace flashpoints - replacing a worker on medical leave, citing that leave, and marking someone ineligible for rehire. Each became a building block for the retaliation claim.
Both sides must submit a joint plan for the limited discovery by August 14, 2026.
