According to the Court’s
opinion, the plaintiff had been hired as a sales representative in 2006. After 18 months of training, she was required
to pass a three-day evaluation session known as Phase VI. Employees who fail the Phase VI examination
are placed on probation and are terminated if they do not pass the test within
six months. After failing the written
examination portion in Fall 2007, the plaintiff explained to her supervisors
that she was having marital and family care issues. She claimed that her supervisors then began
treating her discriminatorily and abusively. She never returned to work after
failing the examination and instead began medical leave based on “emotional
trauma” brought on by the Phase VI examination.
The physician to whom the employer referred the plaintiff for treatment
diagnosed her with severe anxiety and depression and informed the company that
she could not return to work for her former supervisors. An internal investigation by HR found no
basis for the plaintiff’s allegations that she was discriminated against and
harassed during Phase VI.
The Company refused to
transfer the plaintiff to different supervisors before she passed Phase VI, but
extended her medical leave until April 30, 2008 (when her STD compensation ran
out). The plaintiff then obtained a job
with a competitor on May 12 -- in violation of defendant’s policy – on the
grounds that she felt that she had been terminated. She then filed a Charge of Discrimination
with the EEOC two days later. After
learning a month later that plaintiff had been working for a competitor in
violation of company policy, the defendant employer terminated her employment
in June 2008. When the plaintiff filed a
Charge alleging retaliation, the defendant employer explained that it had been
unaware of her first Charge at the time it decided to terminate her employment.
The plaintiff filed her lawsuit in June
2009 alleging violations of the FMLA, ADA and Title VII gender discrimination
provisions. The district court granted
the employer’s motion for summary judgment.
The Sixth Circuit
affirmed dismissal of the disability discrimination claims on the basis that
the plaintiff had failed to prove that her mental distress was “substantially
limiting” instead of a short-term impairment.
The plaintiff was “unable to direct this court to evidence that the limits on
her non-work activities were anything more than a short-term, temporary result
of the anxiety and depression triggered by actions leading up to and during her
failed Phase VI examination.” There was
no evidence that her marital and child care issues were related to her mental
distress. Further, there was evidence
that her condition had improved in February 2008 and virtually disappeared by
June 2008. She never “pointed to any
evidence in the record that Dr. Booher or another treating physician considered
her anxiety and depression to be a permanent condition or one with a “long-term
impact.”
The long-term impact of a
condition is not necessarily dispositive of whether it may qualify as a
disability under the ADA. In this case, however, the lack of evidence supporting
long-term impact – considered along with the other relevant factors and the
entire record – do not provide sufficient evidence such that a reasonable jury
could find [the plaintiff’s] “disabled” under the terms of the pre-amendment
ADA.
The Court rejected the
plaintiff’s regarded-as-disabled claim.
Her physician had indicated in April 2008 that she was capable of
returning to work and performing all of her job duties, but not for her former
supervisors. “[T]his is not evidence that [the employer] viewed [the
plaintiff] as substantially limited. Moreover, [the employer’s] neutral rule
against pre- Phase VI transfers weakens [her] claim that [the employer] treated
her differently on account of a perceived disability.”
The Court also rejected her claims that the employer failed
to offer her reasonable accommodations.
[R]equests for re-assignment
to a new supervisor are disfavored. . . . While it is appropriate to consider the
reasonableness of such a request on a “case-by-case” basis, there is a
“presumption . . . that a request to change supervisors is unreasonable, and
the burden of overcoming that presumption (i.e., of demonstrating that, within
the particular context of plaintiff’s workplace, the request was reasonable)
therefore lies with the plaintiff. . . .
Here,
given that [the plaintiff] was in a probationary initial training period as an
employee and had already failed the required final examination, it is not clear
that the benefits of such a transfer would have outweighed the associated
administrative costs.
The Court rejected her assorted claims of retaliation. For instance,
the employer’s medical director was unaware of her internal complaints and had
merely relied on her own physician’s assessments of her mental state when he
refused to permit her to return to work.
The employer’s neutral policy prohibiting supervisory transfers before
passing Phase VI was a legitimate reason to deny her requests. Similarly, terminating her employment for
violating a policy against working for competitor was also a legitimate and
non-retaliatory reason.
NOTICE:
This summary is designed merely to inform and alert you of recent legal
developments. It does not constitute legal advice and does not apply to any
particular situation because different facts could lead to different results.
Information here can change or be amended without notice. Readers should not act
upon this information without legal advice. If you have any questions about
anything you have read, you should consult with or retain an employment
attorney.
