No. 22-3324 ___________________________

Judy Brown

Plaintiff - Appellant

v.

Conagra Brands, Inc.

Defendant - Appellee ____________

Appeal from United States District Court for the District of Nebraska - Lincoln ____________

Submitted: March 14, 2024 Filed: March 12, 2025 ____________ Before COLLOTON, Chief Judge, ERICKSON and KOBES, Circuit Judges. ____________ KOBES, Circuit Judge.

After being demoted and then fired, Judy Brown sued Conagra Brands, Inc., alleging discrimination based on race and disability and retaliation for filing a discrimination charge, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq., and the Nebraska Fair Employment Practice Act (NFEPA), Neb. Rev. Stat. § 48-1101 et seq. She also claims that Conagra violated Nebraska common law by retaliating against her for filing a workers’ compensation claim. The district court1 granted Conagra’s motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. We affirm.

Conagra hired Brown, a biracial woman, in October 1997. She became disabled in 2015 after suffering a workplace injury and filed a workers’ compensation claim in 2017. As an accommodation, Conagra temporarily transferred Brown from her position as a forklift operator to packaging machine operator, moving Mr. King from packaging machine operator to forklift operator. Conagra paid Brown the higher forklift operator rate until July 2020, when her work restrictions became permanent, and then cut her pay to the packaging machine operator rate.2

After King died in September 2020, Conagra posted the forklift operator and the packaging machine operator jobs. Brown applied for the first-shift packaging machine operator position but was not selected, despite having more seniority than the successful candidate. She was instead assigned to work the second and third shifts for less pay. She filed a charge of discrimination against Conagra with the NEOC and the EEOC, alleging that due to her “disability, record of disability, race, and in retaliation for requesting an accommodation and filing a charge of discrimination, [she] was demoted and assigned to a less favorable shift.”

Brown was fired on December 6, 2021, and then sued in state court. Conagra removed to federal district court and answered. After Brown filed an amended complaint, Conagra moved to dismiss.

1 The Honorable John M. Gerrard, United States District Judge for the District of Nebraska. 2 After Conagra cut her pay, Brown filed a charge of discrimination with the Nebraska Equal Opportunity Commission (NEOC) and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), both of which dismissed the charge and issued right-to-sue letters. She has not challenged the district court’s finding that the race and disability discrimination claims based on her July 2020 pay reduction are time barred. -2- We review de novo the district court’s grant of Conagra’s motion to dismiss, accepting the amended complaint’s well-pleaded allegations as true and drawing all reasonable inferences in Brown’s favor. See Warmington v. Bd. of Regents of Univ. of Minn., 998 F.3d 789, 795–96 (8th Cir. 2021). “To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Co