Thursday, April 4, 2013

Sixth Circuit Affirms Dismissal of FMLA and ERISA Claims

Today, the Sixth Circuit released two opinions affirming the summary judgment dismissal of two lawsuits.  One involved FMLA and disability discrimination claims and the other involved denial of STD/LTD benefits under ERISA.  In the FMLA case, the plaintiff employee failed to show that his termination was related to his use of FMLA  leave or violated Ohio law.   Blosser v. AK Steel Corp., No. 12-4015 (6th Cir. 4-2-13).  In the ERISA case, the plaintiff employee claimed to be too stressed out to work, but refused to consult with a psychiatrist and had only the vague support of her primary care practitioner to support her claims.  Therefore, the Court found it was not arbitrary or capricious for the insurance carrier to deny her claims under ERISA.   Hogan v. Life Ins. Co. of N. Am., No. 12-5902 (6th Cir. 4-2-13).

In Blosser, the plaintiff employee was hired in 2007 as an at-will engineer and received negative performance feedback:

[The manager] informed [plaintiff] that his performance was not meeting expectations and told him that he would need to improve. On one occasion, [the manager] indicated that the cost and time associated with one of [plaintiff’s] projects was “getting out of hand” and that [his] projects were not progressing as expected. Nevertheless, [plaintiff] continued having problems and failing to meet the expectations of [the manager] and other supervisors at AK Steel.

In September 2008, the plaintiff took FMLA leave to remove a brain tumor and was released to return to work without any medical restrictions in November 2008.   He returned to work on December 1 without any medical restrictions and admitted that he was not suffering from any disability. His work performance did not improve after his medical leave.  While he accomplished assigned tasks, his manager felt that he did not show enough initiative or independent judgment.

[The manager] rated [plaintiff] as “below satisfactory” in seven of ten performance sections, including “job knowledge, planning, control, management of resources, decision-making, communications (oral and written), and current performance.” [The manager] explained his ratings by writing, “Al is slow to assume the responsibilities of the Infrastructure work for Middletown Works. . . . [He is] not aggressive enough. . . . The quantity and difficulty of the projects that Al has been assigned is lower due to the length of time he has taken to work on them. . . . [He] has not achieved the desired improvement in response time.” When [the manager] and [plaintiff] met to discuss the evaluation, [he] blamed any substandard performance on his recent medical problems.

In the meantime, the recession adversely affected the company’s business and layoffs were made based on seniority, job performance and uniqueness of skills.  Because the plaintiff had low seniority, a non-unique job and documented poor performance, he was selected for layoff.  Before he had been notified of the layoff, the plaintiff emailed the HR department – in an attempt to avoid being laid off – that his medical condition had not been properly considered in his prior performance evaluation.  He filed suit following his layoff.

The Court found that the plaintiff could not show that he was laid off because of his FMLA leave merely because the layoff occurred six weeks following his return to work.    First, the Court focused not on the date of his return to work, but on the date several months earlier when he requested FMLA leave in September.  The passage of four months between his FMLA request and his layoff was found insufficient to support, by itself, the implication of retaliation.  “[A] plaintiff must couple temporal proximity with other evidence to show causation.”  In this case, the “other evidence” submitted by the plaintiff was insufficient.  The offer by his supervisor to help him move was irrelevant.   A comment that his work performance had not improved or changed since his medical leave was also irrelevant.  Comments by the company CEO in general against a state law form of FMLA leave was also insufficient to show retaliation.  In addition, the plaintiff could not show pretext in that there had been dissatisfaction with his job performance before he requested medical leave and those comments were consistent with his subsequent performance evaluation following his medical leave.   He also could not dispute the company’s economic need for layoffs during the recession.  Finally, he could not show his layoff was retaliation for emailing HR because the decision had already been made before his email was sent.

The Court also rejected his disability discrimination claim under Ohio law on the grounds that he could not show that he was disabled when he returned from a brief medical leave with no medical restrictions.  The Court found that his surgery and the potential of a need for future medical treatments did not render him disabled as having a record of a disability.   Instead, his brain tumor – while serious – was of temporary duration and was resolved without any further medical restrictions.  Therefore, the Court rejected any argument that it constituted a record of a substantial impairment. 

The Court found that the plaintiff had failed to produce any evidence that he had been regarded as disabled and could not show that his layoff was pretext for discrimination.

In the Hogan case, the plaintiff visited her primary care physician in September 2008 complaining of anxiety, difficulties concentrating, panic attacks, disliking her job and back pain.  He diagnosed her with depression, prescribed medication and she stopped working two days later on the grounds of depression, anxiety and panic attacks.   She visited her physician a week later complaining of anxiety and work-related stress and he agreed that she required a medical leave to adjust to her new medications.  A month later, she explained to her physician that she was still too stressed to return to work and he referred her to a psychiatrist.   She visited her EAP, which noted no restrictions on her work or daily activities, but referred her to another psychiatrist in order to rule out Alzheimers or dementia.  There was no evidence that she had ever consulted with any psychiatrist.

The plaintiff’s claims for STD and LTD were denied because she failed to provide satisfactory proof of disability.  While her primary physician noted that "significant stressors at work exacerbate [her] condition . . . but did  not connect any specific work activity to her condition, nor did he provide any evidence of objective testing or fruther evaluation.  And while he noted restrictions on her work activities, he did not initially place any restrictions on any other activities of  [her] daily life."  In rejecting her claim, the defendant company explained the:
 

lack of clinical evidence of functional deficiencies and added “we cannot conclude from the records we received a physical or mental inability to function at work other than your current dislike for your position.

 . . . .

Disability is determined by medically supported functional limitations and restrictions which preclude ability in performing your occupation. We do not dispute you may have been somewhat limited or restricted due to your diagnosis, however an explanation of your functionality and how your functional capacity prevented you from performing the requirements of a Leave Processor was not clinically supported as we were not provided with physical exam findings, physical limitations, and severity of symptoms.

The Court affirmed the denial of the claim:

In evaluating Hogan’s claim, LINA received only three brief visit notes from Hogan’s treating physician—an internist lacking any sort of mental-health specialization. These notes indicated that the idea to take time off from work originated with Hogan and was not a restriction imposed by her physician (although Dr. Schurfranz agreed with her decision to stop working until her medications better controlled her self-reported symptoms). The record lacked any sort of clinical verification, and despite requests and opportunities to do so, Hogan failed to provide the type of information about her specific limitations that could be used by LINA to determine that she met the plan’s definition of disability.

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.