Case Citator › Bullington v. United Air Lines, Inc.

Bullington v. United Air Lines, Inc.

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Abrogatedin review
74 of 75 flagged citations read · 98.7%
Court
Tenth Circuit
Citation
186 F.3d 1301
Decided
Confirmed treatments
2
Flagged citations read
74 of 75
Citing cases (total)
332
Treatment dates
2002–2005
Abrogated · in review
A reviewed court treats this case as abrogated by later authority. Bullington v. United Air Lines, Inc. was abrogated in part on hostile work environment timing. National Railroad Passenger Corp. v. Morgan allowed consideration of acts outside the filing period when part of a timely hostile environment claim; the Tenth Circuit in Boyer v. Cordant Technologies, Inc. identified Morgan as having displaced Bullington's contrary notice rule.
More on how this was screened

Lyons v. Red Roof Inns, Inc. criticized Bullington's comparator formulation. Of 75 flagged citations, 74 have been read; one citing opinion could not be retrieved and remains unread. The 2 confirmed federal-law treatments are listed below.

The treatments below are confirmed; unread citations could still change the overall status.
Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

332 later cases cite Bullington v. United Air Lines, Inc.; 75 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading; the progress bar above tracks how many have been read so far. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on Bullington v. United Air Lines, Inc.?

This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.

Treatments

Abrogated

  • The Supreme Court displaced Bullington's rule barring recovery for earlier hostile environment acts when the plaintiff already knew they were discriminatory.

    National Railroad Passenger Corp. v. Morgan · Supreme Court of the United States · filed

    We also hold that consideration of the entire scope of a hostile work environment claim, including behavior alleged outside the statutory time period, is permissible for the purposes of assessing liability, so long as an act contributing to that hostile environment takes place within the statutory time period.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

Criticized

  • The Tenth Circuit called Bullington's comparator formulation incorrect because later circuit precedent allowed proof that the plaintiff's job was not eliminated.

    Lyons v. Red Roof Inns, Inc. · Tenth Circuit (unpublished order and judgment) · filed

    The magistrate judge stated that Lyons was required to show that “she was treated less favorably than others not in the protected class” to satisfy the fourth element of her prima facie case. R., Doc. 29 at 5 (citing Bullington v. United Air Lines, Inc. , 186 F.3d 1301, 1315-16 (10th Cir. 1999)). This is an incorrect statement of the law, however, because this court subsequently held in Perry that a Title VII plaintiff may satisfy the fourth element of the prima facie case by demonstrating that “the job from which she was terminated was not eliminated.” Perry , 199 F.3d at 1140. Although Perry did not expressly overrule Bullington , we have recognized that Perry is “[t]he most definitive Tenth Circuit case on the formulation of the fourth prong of a plaintiff’s prima facie case pursuant to McDonnell Douglas ,” and that “comparison to a person outside of the protected class in the fourth prong of the prima facie case is unnecessary to create an inference of discriminatory discharge.” Kendrick v. Penske Transp. Servs., Inc. , 220 F.3d 1220, 1228, 1229 (10th Cir. 2000).
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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