Gorsuch often sided with employers in workers' rights cases
The case tugs at the heartstrings: A popular Kansas State University professor battles breast cancer, then leukemia. The school won't extend her six-month sick leave, she loses her job and she cannot get rehired. She sues for discrimination based on disability.
Grace Hwang's lawsuit was one of many employee cases heard by federal appeals court Judge Neil Gorsuch, President Donald Trump's pick for the Supreme Court. The majority opinion he wrote siding with Kansas State is illustrative. His worker's rights opinions are often sympathetic but coldly pragmatic, and they're usually in the employer's favor.
"Hwang's is a terrible problem, one in no way of her own making," Gorsuch's 2014 opinion said about the former professor and attorney, who died last year. Federal law "seeks to prevent employers from callously denying reasonable accommodations that permit otherwise qualified disabled persons to work — not to turn employers into safety net providers for those who cannot work."
A review of dozens of employment cases he heard in his decade on the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals reveals a focus on texts and a fondness for scrutinizing definitions of words in legislation and the Constitution. Conservatives herald his strict approach. Many liberals say it too often results in workers losing out.
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