reversed to grant a summary judgment that was in her to favor of the factory card party out what just by way of a brief introduction miss wheatly was formerly employed by factory carton party outlet and for approximately ten years had worked as the manager of one of its retail stores she was injured and off of work the injury was unrelated to work but it was an injury to her foot she was off work as are f m l a leave expired there is some dispute about what happened when she came back this court of course has to accept miss wheatley's version of those disputed facts but i think it's important to note there are no facts in the record offered by the defense the defendant not provided any affidavit or deposition testimony of the individuals who were involved in the decision making process so that makes miss wheatley's facts not only mandatory to follow but also undisputed in this particular case absent that isn't this week the left only with the release from dr seneca allowing her to return to work on july sixth with no restriction and wouldn't that indicate argued before to the district court but let me let me address that particular question judge opener and this gets back to i guess the underlying question of whether it is necessary that there be an expert witness this court has repeatedly held in determining whether any individual suffers from a disability under the americans with disabilities act expert testimony expert testimony is not mandated it may be used but there is no obligation that a plaintiff has to use must be offered is admissible evidence that's what has to be offered so for example one of the cases that we cite the sears vs ego see case that case dealt with the testimony of an individual who explained their physical disagree with a judge over she has her testimony and that is ness that is filing this court has ruled repeatedly that that is fine a plaintiff on their own testimony can establish that they are disabled under the americans with disabilities act so they don't need to fall back on the expert testimony of a doctor the question is whether there is evidence from which a jury pretty reasonably conclude that the person suffers from a disability now well here's here's here's i'm afraid the way i think i see it although of course i want to hear everything you have to say it seems to me that dr fleshly sippin you it's necessary both to establish that she continued to have medical directions on july eleventh and s could not return to work without accommodation and to identify the accommodation of an would allow her to return her testimony then could have been relevant determine what the job actually entails old and her ability to meet those requirements absent the medical evidence her testimony is insufficient because she can't assess the medical limitations on her activities otherwise you know everyone would be coming in  and and and saying i can't do this you know i don't have a doctor that's it so i can't do this but i can't do this well judge wrote i respectfully disagree and i think that this court's precedent establishes that you do not need medical evidence in the form of a doctor statement to establish that you are disabled this court has repeatedly allowed plaintiffs to come forward and outline what the nature of their disabilities are and we cite to one of those cases in here this i think it's the e e o c versus sears rate roebuck and it says a reasonable jury could conclude based on this evidence and its own life experience that was the testimony of particular plaintiff th severe difficulty in walking the equivalent of one city block was a substantial limitation compared to the walking most people do daily and so what you have is you have a plaintiff's testimony explaining explaining how it is that they are disabled and a jury is allowed isn't why isn't her affidavit here really just a bare conclusion and not competent testimony supported by personal observation i judge shawn tried to just why is it not why is it not just  are not admissible when they are not based upon admissible evidence in this particular case or witness affidavit contains tremendous amounts of admissible evidence it's all most all in miscible she talks about what she was able to do what her physical abilities work she talked about when it was that she got the boot which was two months before she sought to come back to work she talked about what it was that she was able to do with the big well she how she was her affidavit stat house considering the testimony of the doctor's wife in that affidavit indicates that she could sit and stand for the eight hour shifts she would require while i think that's exactly what she says her job did not require her she was the store manager should that her job did not require her in the the job description is in the record but the job description did not require her to stand for eight hours what she couldn't do was stay in for eight hours but her testimony and i think she explains in her affidavit was that yes she was able to stand for periods of time and then she would need to sit down she was not able to stand the only evidence that we have from  party outlet anywhere and it's not even thing that they've offered was that the problem was she was not able to climb a ladder with the boot with the immobilizing boot she was not able to climb a ladder however we believe those there's nothing in her job description that requires her to climb a ladder there is nothing in any testimony that has been offered by factory carton party outlet that would require her to climb a ladder and she testified that she would climb a ladder for restocking shell maybe four or five times on a week in a given week what she's for explained to her testimony was that if it was necessary she could have had one of her associates go ahead and inclined that letter that was the only limitation that she had she explained that to them when she wanted to come back the only concern that they had in her coming back was the fact that her boot would not allow her to climb the ladder now it i would also know it is incumbent upon the employer to engage in a meaningful interaction with the plaintiff about a request to retrieve reasonable accommodation all they said was unless you're one hundred percent able to do everything you're not coming back that is you know if she were qualified  to perform the essential functions with the accommodation of a boot then she was not entitled to disability payments from that right or wrong that is correct and i think that that bears that some explanation judge shaw i mean what would you have to understand what happened here was she was told she was not allowed to come back with a boot the aetna disability application questions is somebody capable of performing their job duties given that fact regarding party outlet had said you can't perform your job duties she was identified as disabled based upon their determination that she could you know whether she was able to work once it was determined she was not able to work in that determination was reached by the employer at that point they said you were physically not able to work so she was entitled to receive disability benefits she disagreed with that she believed that she could work boot but they had hard already denied that before it was that that particular document was signed off on and on i believe it was july eighth by d the there are there are a couple of things that i would like to point out and i think that the the critical decision from this court that the district court relied upon was this basis there bassett the basic holding is supported by the fact that in most cases and certainly in wheatley's case the question of whether a person can perform a job function with a reasonable accommodation is an inherently medical question which must be answered by expert testimony that is not what the base of court says that is not what that decision holds this court has never held that what the basis court said was the testimony that was offered there was no evidence there was no evidence offered it says as an example they could use would be medical testimony this court offer that as a particular example it has never required it i would also say  that when i was preparing for this case there was another case that came out when i was preparing for today there was a there was another case i discovered i did not brief that but i will submit a letter to the court to outline that pursuant to the to this court s argument and i'll just try to focus in like a laser on the issues i see it that's really most relevant for the court today and i think that's distinguishing between two elements of the eighty eight mind one being there's a disability and i think the case cited by collins counsel of the e e o c case is directly relevant to the common sense testimony that could be established without expert testimony and that is what this court has repeatedly held in respect to that element but the element district court was talking about and upon which the district court and in summary judgment is an entirely separate element which is the qualifier individual element and that in fact the court has repeatedly at least implicitly elven will murder basis and the waggle decision an inherently medical issue that requires expertise why is it inherently medical why can't someone who personally experiences what a job entails and has personal knowledge of what their own functional capacity is be able to say i can do this but i can't do that why isn't that perfectly competent in this simple test first i would say the judge saw that the reason primarily is because it's cortisol otherwise previously i'm certainly capable of testifying to what i am able to do around the house and that's on the disability issue but there was a medical reason why she was taken off work and that was reflected in the attending physician statement she was off work but how is it different for an individual saying here's what i can do around the house which you just said is appropriate testimony how is that any different from an individual saying i could with the boot on walk around the store perform the functions that i was expected to perform as a store manager and i know those functions because i've done them every day of my life while employed and i know what i can do with the boot because i wore the boot for a few weeks why isn't that exactly the same kind of testimony on the disability front that the court has said is admissible from a non medical person understood just in some respects it is the same in that she can certainly testify as to what she believes based on her personality and she's able to do  that she has done around the house to the extent that similar to what she's able to do on the job however there was a medical doctor who made a term in medical determination that she required a medical examination to perform  the job and so in order for her to return to work employers entitled to rely upon medical medical testimony to release or to make sure that they wouldn't be subject to further liability by a liar to come back to work with an accommodation  in respect to which they have no assurance medically that she is in fact able to come back to work and i think that's why this court has previously require something beyond the bare assertion of the plaintiff and that's exactly what we have here in this affidavit is it's just your own testimony and we're not talking about the disability issue that's totally separate and should be considered as such so just to distinguish having this is your consideration that she was able to more on july eleventh without restriction as dr sena king indicated or that she was not able to fill the duty separate job even with accommodation on july eleventh because she needed an in mobilising boot and couldn't use the latter while doing so well the issue of the latter and what was said during this telephone conversation that would have been a factual issue at trial was not the subject of the of the trial court's decision and and factory garden party alice position respect to what she could and couldn't do it wasn't the subject of the course decision either it certainly would have been disputed fact at trial however based upon the the use was necessary judge i think the the the fact in respect to the latter was something that was inserted into the case by the plaintiff and would have been disputed at trial by the trial that the latter was any requirement or that it was asserted as a basis for not return to work i think the testimony would have been that they had a full disability attending physician statement saying she was incapable of minimal activity completely off work during this period and so they was also on the record they asked her for a certification from a physician that she was she was able to return the return to work and based upon  this her account of this conversation that she says she had with people from factory garden party al it kind of went radio silence and didn't didn't return to work forces as the court pointed out even if the attending physician statement were inadmissible and we course disagree with that we're left with a full release and no no no coming back to work and under the best of decision one of the essential elements of performing your job is this of course appearing for work so medical documentation it simply suggests that as one means of substantiating the cli right that is correct as i would say that there's not a and there's a little distinction to close in that case the plaintiff and not use the motorized wheelchair he had proposed to carry out his job but here the plaintiffs knew what she could accomplish with the they just those are accurate distinctions factually and i think it's accurate also to say that there's not a case that i was able cape the seventh circuit or elsewhere that says you absolutely must have written evidence from a doctor and that you absolutely have to have something beyond medical evidence beyond the plaintiff's own testimony however at least i mean it doesn't your argument really go to the weight of the evidence with the trial court held on in the or in summary judgment and and that's consistent with our argument that this court has at least implicitly held on at least three occasions that the medical evidence for establishing the element of a qualified individual before you even get to the disability issue of the evidence but that you can't survive summary judgment without oh the poor employer what are we to do we have to we have that an employee who's coming back to work and we don't know if they're healthy we don't know if they can perform the job it can subject us to potential liability for both the family medical leave act and the americans with disabilities  recognize that concern both of them allow an employer to request that employees submit to an independent medical evaluation to make that determination so the employer does have an option on how to handle that particular concern the real problem in this case was the breakdown in the discussions you know or we she doesn't know about the americans with disabilities act she's a store manager but what she did do was she talked to them and she told them look i can come back to work with a medical but they told her they told her no you're not coming back under those terms so why would she have gone out and gotten the documentation from her physician same i can come back with she can come back with this medical but she's already been told no but you know if you say if you are prepared to accept the fact that it might be an open question whether she could have worked out while wearing the boot and that maybe the employer would then have to submit her to a fitness for duty evaluation or ultimately fire her because it didn't work out right but if you acknowledge that that is sort of an open question on this record doesn't that mean that she has not mustered enough evidence to defeat summary judgment no no i don't know whether the boot would have worked out then doesn't that mean they they went no no the question is can a reasonable jury may find that in our favor and you know we have the testimony they have no testimony they don't have testimony from any you know they they don't have the affidavits from any of these people who were involved they have nothing they haven't prepared any of that documentation so no it doesn't establish that what it establishes is if an employer and this goes back to the obligation of the employer and this is clear from the americans with disabilities act to engage in the interactive process that requires a conversation and employees obligation is to notify the employer of the problem that's exactly what she did she talked to them she explained the problem at that point the employer had an obligation to engage in the interactive process they did they said well too bad you're not one hundred percent you're not coming back all right so there's a failure of the interactive process so to place the blame on her and to say well she doesn't have enough evidence that's preposterous what we do now is we say well six years later you need to go back and gather the evidence that's not fair what is fair is for her to come in and say look i did this i know what i was able to do i know what my job was because i did it for ten years i know what i was physically capable of doing because i would have been in a boot for two months prior to this i know the only thing i was limited in doing was walking up and down that ladder and i knew based on my years of doing that job that that was a minor detail to my job and so the problem here is they have failed to present any outearned of evidence and that means that this case should be decided by a jury through a trial and not by a judge and summary judgment again we ask the court to reverse the decision i think the court very