This morning, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati reversed a judgment entered as a matter of law on a perceived disability claim brought under the ADA by a female UPS driver on the grounds that the employer's insistence that she be 100% fit for duty within 30 days of returning to work reflected its judgment that she was physically incapable of performing a wide range of jobs under its light duty program and because it questioned the sincerity of the employer's explanation about the 30-day requirement. Watts v. UPS, No. 08-3779 (6th Cir. 2010). However, the Court affirmed the dismissal of the plaintiff's sex discrimination claim when the trial court ordered a new trial (where the jury found in favor of the employer) after the jury in the first trial awarded the plaintiff over $200,000 in damages on the sex discrimination claim, but its answers to special interrogatories were contradictory.
According to the Court's opinion, the plaintiff was the only female driver in that county between 1999 and 2004. However, after a work-related injury in 2000, she was off work until 2003. Although there was contradictory evidence, the plaintiff asserted that she was released to return to work with restrictions in Fall 2002, but the employer refused to permit her to return until she was 100% fit for duty within 30 days of reinstatement. It also suggested that she pursue a reasonable accommodation on account of a disability. The employer contended that the seniority provisions of its collective bargaining agreement only permitted light duty assignments of up to 30 days before the assignment became permanent and, thus, employees could only work light duty for 30 days. The plaintiff produced evidence that this 30 day requirement had not been imposed on certain male employees and was not described in the employer's written descriptions of the light duty program. The plaintiff filed a grievance, but it was denied. When the employer refused to reinstate her, she filed Charges with the EEOC that she was being discriminated against on account of her sex and disability. She ultimately filed a lawsuit in federal court, but the trial court entered judgment as a matter of law in favor of the employer on the perceived disability discrimination claim and the jury was not permitted to consider it because the trial court concluded that the plaintiff only proved that the employer considered her temporarily impaired. The jury awarded over $200K in damages to the plaintiff on her sex discrimination claim and answered a special jury interrogatory that she was treated differently than male employees in the light duty program, but denied in other special jury interrogatories that she had proven sex discrimination or pretext in how she was treated. The trial court then ordered a new trial and the second jury ruled in favor of the employer on the plaintiff's sex discrimination claim. The plaintiff then appealed to the Sixth Circuit.
The Sixth Circuit had no difficulty finding sufficient evidence to support the plaintiff's perceived disability discrimination claim under the ADA even though her claim pre-dated the ADA Amendments Act which broadened the scope of the ADA and made alleging such claims easier:
When a defendant flatly bars a plaintiff from working at any job at the defendant's company, that is generally sufficient proof that the employer regards the plaintiff as disabled in the major life activity of working so as to preclude the defendant being awarded judgment as a matter of law.
The Court relied on its prior decisions in Wysong v. Dow Chemical Co., 503 F.3d 441 (6th Cir. 2007) and Henderson v. Ardco, Inc., 247 F.3d 645 (6th Cir. 2001) (where the plant manager told the plaintiff: " You know what company policy is . . . you have to be 100 percent to work here") where the employer refused to permit the plaintiffs to return to work in any capacity or position with any physical or medical restrictions because they were not 100% fit following an injury or illness. Because the employer's light duty program encompassed a wide variety of jobs ("including answering phones, filing, gassing up and washing vehicles,"), its refusal to permit the plaintiff to participate reflected a judgment that she was physically incapable of performing a wide variety of jobs.
In Henderson, this court interpreted an injured employee being told that she had to be "100%" to work there as tending to indicate that the defendant regarded her as disabled in a wide spectrum of jobs sufficient to defeat the defendant's motion for summary judgment. See Henderson, 247 F.3d at 654. Similarly, in Wysong this court interpreted an employer's statement that the plaintiff could not return to work until she had received "a [medical] release to work without restrictions" as evidence that the defendant "perceived Wysong as being unable to work anywhere at the plant, and thus, unable to perform the same broad class of work anywhere else." See Wysong, 503 F.3d at 453. The Kaufmann/Germann statements here – that there was no work for Watts unless she could present a full medical release – present a situation similar to the full-medical-release requirement in Wysong and the 100% rule in Henderson. The jury could have concluded that the statement indicated that UPS perceived Watts as being unable to perform the broad class of jobs available at the UPS Hamilton facility.
Moreover, the Court questioned the legitimacy of the employer's explanation that an employee had to be 100% fit because of the bargaining agreement's seniority provisions because the 30-day rule did not flow from the CBA, was not applied to certain male employees and was not described in the employer's written descriptions of the light duty program. Thus, it concluded that there was evidence that the employer's explanation for not placing the plaintiff in the light duty program was pretexual and a mere disguise for unlawful discrimination.
[Editor's Note: In January 2011, the EEOC announced a $3.2M settlement with Supervalu arising out of the termination of employees following medical leaves of absence under a policy that employees could only return to work if they were medically certified to be 100% fit for duty].
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.
