The leave records didn't add up, and neither did his bias case on appeal
A transgender bus operator who lost his job over his medical-leave records also lost his discrimination case on appeal.
On June 24, 2026, the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a suit brought by former Chicago Transit Authority bus operator Russia Brown against the CTA and his union, Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 241. He claimed both acted against him because of his gender identity. The court found he never produced the evidence to prove it.
The setup will look familiar to any HR team that leans on a third-party leave administrator. The worker joined the CTA in 2016. In June 2020 he applied for intermittent leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act - the federal law that gives eligible workers up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave a year - citing "random back pains." The CTA runs FMLA through a vendor, ReedGroup, which processes applications and tracks how much leave each worker uses. The expectation was straightforward: clear the day with ReedGroup first, then tell your garage. Telling only the garage counted, in the CTA's view, as falsifying leave.
His application stalled after a second medical opinion found he did not qualify, and he never completed the tie-breaking third opinion. By October 2020 he had logged twenty-four FMLA absences with his garage that never reached ReedGroup. A business manager caught the mismatch, the worker could not explain it, and in...
A California-based physician was recently arrested after pleading guilty to charges of healthcare fraud. Dr. Sanjoy Banerjee, was a medical director for Fountain Hospice, based in Los Angeles. Two...