or this morning is martinez against american airlines doing that i wanted to just clarify the scope of your argument here is i understood from your brief that you are at this stage of the game focusing exclusively on the staff support position that he believes he should or a staff support sedition if there was one and not the other two jobs that ms baldonado found in the database that's not quite accurate argument ok so again just a point of clarification i understood that she identified those two jobs the concierge and the reservation jobs  but he would have actually had to filed an application for those jobs so that you know perhaps further process would happen it was not my impression that american airlines actually just flat out offered them to him but you can tell me if that's application process let's say for a reservation agent if somebody had decided that he didn't have the necessary computer skills he might not have been offered the job in the end that's possible your honor but you know mr martinez i mean the defendant is required to make a reasonable accommodation no no to an employer and i'm trying to get as a child down the road these two jobs go and not all the way it sounds like when they go all the way to the at his terminations because he was terminated for not accepting either one of those jobs or not accepting an offer following up on that's what i'm trying to get at and that the staff support position if you have evidence that there was an open position for which he was qualified well avital rider egads of the managing director of the american airlines maintenance division had testified that you know over time there are positions that you know but those were not offered to mr martinez ms rodriguez knew that mr martinez was off and medical leave that he had returned that he was looking for a new position and that that was a position that mr martinez could have fulfilled within the maintenance department staff support staff support yes and i thought he needed computer skills for that the microsoft office competence was acquired well that's what the that's what judge  the ms rodriguez sighed she said that he would be qualified for a staff support position within maintenance but i think there's some question about what she said i understood her to be saying with the a comprehensive one well mr martinez and other skills as well as i mean in the sense there are jobs that john could do with the with the restrictions he had in place at the time so he doesn't have priggish that position because he did know how to operate a computer he was being offered by american airlines at least one computer position one being the reservationist position so american airlines seem to think at least at some point a and here says another job and do you think the employer needs to you know say give computer training or needs to give any other kind of training to get someone ready for a job well when it comes to training you know not necessarily that there's an obligation to train but that as long as they have some skills i mean he would not have understood how to do a reservation as position there would have had to have been some training sure it supports on asking so the sorts but you know you don't have to send somebody off to get a two year degree at a college you know so somewhere in between there and the support staff position itself i mean as long as he can type and he makes  i know there's conflicting testimony where mr martinez did say that he did not understand the internet or he did not understand i forget the term he used but he could use the computer my my my concern  is we're drifting away from the actual governance core the district judge on summary judgment you know speculating about that and filling in blanks that we might want to feel him but if you can direct us to the most specific evidence that there was a reasonable accommodation available that would be helpful  were taken away from him and he was not given those those well he s he asked for information about them he wanted further information and the reservation his position was asking him to move from chicago all the way to arizona you know he never said he wasn't going to move or he wouldn't he would consider relocation but the problem here is with the relocating he needed more information regarding the position so he could share with his family he worked for american airlines for probably thirty years and he was in maintenance so you know this is a complete change from what he was accustomed to we needed more information on them so is it your position that they didn't forward any information that's correct yes i've written information he i say harassing but there was a lot of conflict and she wasn't she wasn't helpful she was not being helpful and she was difficult to reach so he'd have to follow up with letters and meron firm couldn't even talk to her so he had to do it all himself to train and find out information regarding the job and then the next thing he knows he's being terminated because he didn't accept or filed for those jobs on line so he wasn't given a deadline he wasn't given any additional information and that's one of the problems with the breakdown in the interactive process in addition mr martinez after he was terminated tried to appeal and talk to mr mr rodriguez to see if you could get his job back and you know as i said before ms wright regards was aware of that mr martinez had been trying to get another job and even though his restrictions later were being lifted from his his mechanics they weren't they weren't bringing  the core of my name is dan farrington i represent american airlines there are three jobs at issue in the appeal there's the stop support job and then there is the reservations on the concierge job and i think that legal framework for those are slightly different so please as the core i'd like to tackle the stuff support job first and then address the other to the parties are in accord that the standard on summary judgment eighty accommodation case where the plaintiff is seeking reassignment to another position as the accommodation that the plaintiff is required to put forth evidence of the existence of a position that was vacant at the time in question for which the the plaintiff was qualified it is undisputed that the minimum posted qualifications for the staff support job included a working knowledge of microsoft word excel and outlook that the plaintiff did not have he had never used those programs and he was not familiar with what they were kind of couples get though it looked to me as though the reservations agent position required some similar familiarity with basic office were products there was no evidence presented to the district court that the reservation agent is not on the computer the fundamental difference between the two positions is the staff support position expected a certain fundamental knowledge of specific software programs for individuals who are coming into that position the reservations agent position does require one to use a computer but in ploy used disabled and otherwise who are new to the reservations agent position are trained as part of the training process person off the street and you probably have to train them as to what kind of system american happens to use for its reservations so i don't know why a comparable amount of training wouldn't be a reasonable thing to include even for something like the staff sport position part i would suggest that most jobs inside and outside of the earl in industry come with some form of training that right so why couldn't he be trained   the plaintiff proposed as an accommodation that the employer provided individualized training for him that was not provided to other new candidates for the position and the court held very ok maybe you can refresh my recollection about the record was he also volunteering to obtain the skills ones all because then that wouldn't be americans hurt her extensively  position the appeal with respect to the staff support position rests on a view to rodriguez's testimony and i encourage the court to review her testimony on the staff support position if you haven't had a chance to do so it's only two pages long and and what she testifies to is that some context is in order of a view to rodriguez was a regional director of the made us apartment with overall responsibility for aircraft maintenance in five very busy cities including chicago o'hare she was a very senior manager and she was many layers levels removed from the staff support position what she testified to was that within her maintenance organization the only sedentary job that existed was staff support it's similar to an individual could easily show for example that law clerk positions exist with this within this quarter and that there are primarily sudden terry jobs that's different from showing that there is an opening and it's different from showing that an individual is qualified for it and if you look at the testimony what it shows is that mr rodriguez was not asked and did not testify about the minimal qualifications for the position or knowledge of mr martinez his skill sets or how those skills compared to the minimum qualifications for the position in fact she testified elsewhere in her deposition that that she did not know what jobs mr martinez other reasonable interpretation of it and for that reason the district court was correct to hold that the plaintiff had not met his burden of summary judgment to demonstrate that there was a vacancy in the staff support position or that mr martinez nothing minimal politic ations for it the reservation the concierge positions raise a question of whether there was a breakdown in the in the interactive process and that might correct that he actually was never offered two jobs the reservations agent position and the concierge position so he was actually offered the job which is why americans arguing that there was no breakdown well there was no point well there's two arguments one is there is no breakdown in testified very specifically that he was offered those two jobs but that but the the second argument is even if there is a breakdown there's no in independent liability for a breakdown of the interactive process unless there is evidence that it leads to the denial of a reasonable accommodation and so in in this specific instance there there is no there is no evidence that he was denied information that was necessary for him to make a decision he includes in his brief information about the location of the positions that pay the effect on his seniority and more importantly i would submit that that once you get to the summary judgment stage by mr martinez had ample opportunity through the discovery process to learn everything he wanted to know the reservations and the concierge positions and he has not made an argument in the district court and he has not made an argument in this court that there was information that he was not told that had he been told at the time he would have made a different decision with respect to those positions and so in the absence of evidence that he was denied information that was necessary in order to  to accept the position that there was no reasonable accommodation that was denied to him and so the argument really puts form over substance in that the information was conveyed if you know that he needed was conveyed worley it wasn't conveyed in writing but that's consistent with the interactive process being an informal process under case law and so we would respectfully request that the court affirmed the district court ok thank you it regarding staff support position i mean mr mr martinez brought a lot more to the table than just microsoft word in office and he had a years of experience something that is invaluable when you're talking about ordering  and doing it mr a to work for the the maintenance department so he's a lot more background knowledge it could have come into play here the employer was in the best position to recommend jobs to him you know but they told him internal and then there was an altar and external website that he could have access but that doesn't mean that if a job is opening up american couldn't have said oh sure look here's a job go take this you know here's perfect what about a restoration is what programs are going to have to do what your daily what your day going to look like he didn't have all of that so he didn't know if and be successful or not you know he was a mechanic you know he wasn't ok all right