The panel affirmed the district court’s judgment after a jury trial in favor of Roman Gonzales in his action under the Americans with Disabilities Act against Batelle Energy Alliance, LLC.

Batelle contracts with the United States Department of Energy to manage the Idaho National Laboratory, where the government stores spent nuclear fuel. Batelle revoked Gonzales’s fitness-for-duty certification and terminated his employment as a Security Police Officer because of his use of prescription pain medication. The jury found in favor of Gonzales on his retaliation and “regarded as” discrimination claims, and the district court denied Batelle’s motion for judgment as a matter of law.

Aligning with the Sixth Circuit, the panel rejected Batelle’s argument that its revocation of Gonzales’s fitness-for-duty certification, a requirement for security personnel under 10 C.F.R. § 1046, was not justiciable because it was a nonreviewable security clearance decision vested with the Department of Energy. Under Dep’t of Navy v. Egan, 484 U.S. 518 (1988), when agencies make security clearance determinations and other similarly predictive national security judgments that Congress vested in those agencies, the resulting decisions are nonjusticiable. The revocation of Gonzales’s fitness-for-duty certification, however, was justiciable because the medical and physical standards set forth in § 1046 are not tied to predictive security determinations.

The panel affirmed Batelle’s other grounds for appeal in a simultaneously filed memorandum disposition.

https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2026/04/16/25-1037.pdf