Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, SAFETY—D. Utah: Latino workshop employees, diagnosed with silicosis, fail to establish claims against employer, (Jul 31, 2026)

By Steven D. Cole, J.D.

The five defendant companies, treated here as a single employer, were entitled to summary judgment on the workers’ claims alleging violations of the ADA, Rehabilitation Act, FMLA, and Section 1981.

A federal district court in Utah has granted summary judgment in favor of an employer in a case involving three Latino workshop employees who were exposed to silica dust from stone-cutting operations. The workers alleged claims for failure to accommodate, retaliation, lack of notice of their FMLA rights, and discrimination under 42 U.S.C. § 1981. Although the workers were successful in arguing that the five defendant companies should be jointly liable as a single employer, each of the asserted claims suffered a defect which precluded relief (Hernandez v. Delta Stone Products, Inc., No. 2:23-cv-00346-JNP-JCB (D. Utah July 28, 2026)).

Five companies. The five defendant companies in this action were owned by the same two individuals. One of the companies, RMD Management, Inc. (RMD), formally employed everyone who worked for the other four, which each operated in distinct sectors of the stone product industry. The three plaintiffs (Workers H, N, and C) were Spanish-speaking Latino men of Mexican descent who worked for Delta Stone Products, Inc. (Delta Stone) as workshop employees. Air quality tests indicated that areas within the workshops had silica levels that, at times, exceeded permissible exposure limits set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Most of the employees working on the workshop floors—which involved the greatest risk of silica dust exposure—were Spanish-speaking Latino individuals of Hispanic descent. Meanwhile, white English-speaking staff primarily worked in the office, which contained undetectable levels of silica.

Silicosis. All three employees stopped working at Delta Stone at some point after being diagnosed with silicosis. Worker H left because he was uncomfortable returning to the workshop floor. Worker N was initially reassigned to the office, but he left after Delta Stone advised that it could only offer him two to three hours of office work per day, and any additional work would be in the workshops. Worker C requested time off for a shoulder surgery and to deal with the psychological toll of his silicosis diagnosis, for which he was given two weeks of leave. He did not return to work, though, alleging that he believed that Delta Sone had terminated his employment, whereas Delta Stone averred that he had abandoned his position.

Procedural history. The workers brought a total of seven claims, some jointly and others individually. After the companies moved for summary judgment, the workers indicated that they would no longer pursue their claims of wrongful termination in violation of public policy under Utah law, and conceded that Worker C’s disability-based claims could not be brought under the Rehabilitation Act. This left the following: (1) Worker C’s allegations of failure to accommodate and retaliation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA); (2) Worker N’s analogous claims under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act; (3) Worker C and N’s FMLA claims; and (4) the Section 1981 allegations of discrimination brought jointly by all three workers.

Peripheral defendants. As an initial matter, the court rejected the defendants’ argument that the other three companies should be dismissed. The workers offered ample evidence that the requirements for joint liability under the single employer test were satisfied, showing common management, common ownership, and centralized control of labor relations. “It strains credulity for Defendants to suggest otherwise given the role that RMD and the two owners play in managing all five entities as one integrated enterprise,” noted the court.

Worker C’s ADA failure-to-accommodate claim. Although the parties disagreed on precisely how Worker C’s request for leave was communicated, there was no evidence suggesting that he provided his employer with any information regarding how long it would take him to recover from shoulder surgery and his mental health issues. Thus, to the extent that Worker C requested leave beyond the two weeks he was provided, he failed to show that his request was reasonable, given that “a request for indefinite leave is not reasonable as a matter of law” in the Tenth Circuit.

Worker C’s ADA retaliation claim. Worker C asserted that he was terminated for requesting time off, citing a January 19, 2021, text message that he received from a safety manager at Delta Stone. The court found this contention to be implausible because the message did not originate from a direct supervisor, and Worker C received extensive communication before and after the text message indicating that he was not terminated and was welcome to return to work. Worker C’s theory also failed the causation test because, had he been fired via this text message, the evidence suggested that it would have been because he did not return to work after his two-week leave.

Worker N’s Rehabilitation Act claims. Worker N alleged that his employer violated the Rehabilitation Act by failing to accommodate his disabilities and retaliating against him. Specifically, Worker N stated that the employer gave him an ultimatum: work only two to three hours per day in the office or disregard your doctor’s medical restrictions by exposing yourself to silica dust on the workshop floor. Crucially, this interaction took place in June 2021. At this time, however, the employer’s obligations under the Rehabilitation Act had expired, since RMD’s federally-guaranteed loan, which was issued pursuant to the Paycheck Protection Program, was forgiven on May 6, 2021.

FMLA claims. Workers C and N presented substantial evidence that the companies flagrantly violated the FMLA by failing to provide them with adequate notice of their rights under the Act, both generally and specifically in Spanish. However, they did not show that they were actually prejudiced by these violations, which precluded relief. At most, the companies’ failure to comply with FMLA notice requirements prevented Workers C and N from taking unpaid FMLA leave, but the workers offered no evidence to show that their inability to do so caused them material harm.

Section 1981 claims. The three workers alleged that the companies discriminated against them based on their race, color, ancestry, and ethnicity, in violation of Section 1981, by assigning Spanish-speaking Latino employees of Mexican descent to uniquely dangerous working conditions, as compared to their white and native English-speaking colleagues, and by failing to provide them with complete information about the dangerous nature of the working conditions on the workshop floor. Even assuming that disparate treatment occurred, as the evidence suggested, this did not constitute an “adverse employment action” because it did not involve any change in the workers’ employment status. See Pacheco v. Whiting Farms, Inc., 365 F.3d 1199, 1206 (10th Cir. 2004) (“An adverse employment action is a detrimental change in the terms or conditions of employment.”) (emphasis added).

Accordingly, the court granted the companies’ motion for summary judgment, “[n]otwithstanding the serious allegations” raised by the workers.

The case is No. 2:23-cv-00346-JNP-JCB.

Judge: Parrish, J.

Attorneys: Lauren I. Scholnick (Scholnick Thorne Holland) for Israel Hernandez, Juan Luis Nunez, and Felipe Correa. Katherine E. Priest (Ray Quinney & Nebeker) for Delta Stone Products, Mountain Valley Stone, RJ Masonry d/b/a/ Mountain West Sealing and Coatings and Legacy Machinery.

Companies: Delta Stone Products; Mountain Valley Stone; RJ Masonry; Mountain West Sealing and Coatings; Legacy Machinery

Cases: Safety DisabilityDiscrimination RaceDiscrimination NationalOrigin Discrimination Retaliation EmployeeLeave Procedure UtahNews