Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-2_13-cv-02315/USCOURTS-azd-2_13-cv-02315-4/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 442
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Employment
Cause of Action: 29:626 Job Discrimination (Age)

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WO 

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA 

Stacia C Hill, 

Plaintiff, 

v. 

City of Phoenix, et al., 

Defendants. 

No. CV-13-02315-PHX-DGC

ORDER 

 On April 26, 2016, the City of Phoenix filed a motion for clarification of the 

Court’s February 8, 2016 order (Doc. 83), which granted in part and denied in part the 

City’s motion for summary judgment. Doc. 90. On May 11, 2016, the Court granted the 

motion, offered its preliminary thoughts on the questions presented, and set a briefing 

schedule. Doc. 92. The parties have submitted their memoranda and replies. Docs. 93-

96. The Court offers the following clarification. 

 1. The fact that the employee and the employer remain in an employment 

relationship does not preclude a finding that the interactive process has broken down – in 

other words, that a party has failed to engage in the interactive process in good faith and 

thereby rendered reasonable accommodation impossible. The Ninth Circuit has held that 

the interactive process breaks down when a party rejects a possible accommodation and 

fails to propose an alternative. See Humphrey v. Mem’l Hosps. Ass’n, 239 F.3d 1128, 

1139 (9th Cir. 2001) (interactive process broke down when employer rejected employee’s 

work-at-home request and failed to explore other accommodations); Barnett v. U.S. Air, 

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Inc., 228 F.3d 1105, 1116-17 (9th Cir. 2000) (interactive process broke down when “U.S. 

Air rejected all three of Barnett’s proposed reasonable accommodations and offered no 

practical alternatives”), vacated on other grounds, 535 U.S. 391 (2002). Courts have 

found that a breakdown can occur within the context of an ongoing employment 

relationship. See, e.g., Waterbury v. United Parcel Serv., No. 2:12-1911 WBS CKD, 

2014 WL 325326, at *8 (E.D. Cal. Jan. 28, 2014) (“The interactive process appears to 

have broken down in late April or early May 2011, when defendant mailed plaintiff a 

letter informing him that it would no longer process his request,” although plaintiff 

remained employed) (applying analogous provision of California law); Beem v. 

Providence Health & Servs., No. CV-10-0037-JLQ, 2011 WL 4852301, at *9 (E.D. 

Wash. Oct. 13, 2011) (reasonable jury could find that plaintiff caused breakdown in 

2005, although plaintiff “continued to raise the issue of her disability thereafter” and was 

not terminated until 2009); Beck v. Univ. of Wis. Bd. of Regents, 75 F.3d 1130 (7th Cir. 

1996) (breakdown occurred in June 1992, although plaintiff remained employed until 

September 1993). The City fails to point to any case suggesting that a final employment 

action is necessary before breakdown can be said to have occurred. 

2. An employer’s inaction or delay in responding to a request for reasonable 

accommodation can support a finding that the employer failed to engage in the interactive 

process in good faith – in other words, that the employer caused the breakdown. The 

Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) imposes upon employers an affirmative duty to 

engage with their disabled employees. “‘A party that obstructs or delays the interactive 

process is not acting in good faith. A party that fails to communicate, by way of 

initiation or response, may also be acting in bad faith.’” Barnett, 228 F.3d at 1115 

(quoting Beck, 75 F.3d at 1135). For example, where additional information is needed 

for the parties to determine an appropriate accommodation, “failure to provide the 

information may be the cause of the breakdown and the party withholding the 

information may be found to have obstructed the process.” Beck, 75 F.3d at 1136. The 

City is therefore mistaken in its view that “there has to be some action on the Plaintiff’s 

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request for reasonable accommodation . . . for the breakdown to occur.” Doc. 93 at 2 

(emphasis deleted).

3. Hill retains the burden of proof as to whether she was a qualified individual 

at the time of the breakdown, and whether a reasonable accommodation would have been 

possible but for the breakdown. As Hill notes, the Ninth Circuit suggested otherwise in 

Morton v. United Parcel Service, Inc., 272 F.3d 1249 (9th Cir. 2001), writing that “[t]he 

question whether [an employer’s failure to engage] should be excused because there 

would in any event have been no reasonable accommodation available is one as to which 

the employer, not the employee, should bear the burden of persuasion throughout the 

litigation.” Id. at 1256. Several considerations lead the Court to conclude that this 

statement is neither binding nor a correct statement of the law. 

First, the statement is dicta. It appears in a section discussing whether “driving 

DOT vehicles was . . . an essential function of the job of package car driver,” in a 

paragraph that specifically cautions that the opinion “do[es] not independently address 

the interactive process cause of action.” Id. & n.6. The court’s analysis is cursory, and 

there is no indication that the issue was briefed. This appears to be a case where “a 

statement [wa]s made casually and without analysis . . . in passing without due 

consideration of the alternatives, or . . . merely as a prelude to another legal issue that 

command[ed] the panel’s full attention.” United States v. Johnson, 256 F.3d 895, 915 

(9th Cir. 2001). For this reason, at least one court in this circuit has found the quoted 

language to be non-binding dicta. See Yonemoto v. McDonald, 114 F. Supp. 3d 1067, 

1117 (D. Haw. 2015) (concluding that “Morton’s suggestion that at trial the burden of 

persuasion rests with a defendant that fails to engage in the interactive process is dicta” 

and declining to follow it). 

Second, the statement in Morton is inconsistent with other more recent Ninth 

Circuit cases emphasizing that a plaintiff must show, as part of a prima facie case for 

failure to accommodate, that she was a qualified individual with a disability. See Samper 

v. Providence St. Vincent Med. Ctr., 675 F.3d 1233, 1237 (9th Cir. 2012) (plaintiff “must 

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show that . . . she is a qualified individual able to perform the essential functions of the 

job with reasonable accommodation,” and she “retains the burden of proof in making her 

prima facie case” throughout the litigation) (alterations incorporated) (citing Allen v. Pac. 

Bell, 348 F.3d 1113, 1114 (9th Cir. 2003)). The approach suggested in Morton would 

relieve the employee of the burden specifically assigned to her in Samper,

1

 by forcing the 

employer to prove that no reasonable accommodation would have allowed the employee 

to discharge the essential functions of her job. 

Third, as noted by Judge Seabright in Yonemoto, the approach suggested in 

Morton is inconsistent with the approach followed by virtually every other circuit court 

of appeals. 114 F. Supp. 3d at 1115 n.21 (collecting cases). 

In light of these considerations, the Court concludes that an employee asserting an 

interactive process claim must show that she was a qualified individual at the time of the 

breakdown and that a reasonable accommodation would have been possible but for the 

breakdown. See Yonemoto, 114 F. Supp. 3d at 1117; Weeks v. Union Pac. R.R. Co., 137 

F. Supp. 3d 1204, 1217 (E.D. Cal. 2015). 

4. If and when the interactive process broke down is a question of fact for the 

jury. See Lara v. DNC Parks & Resorts at Tenaya, Inc., No. 1:14-CV-000103-LJO, 2015 

WL 4394618, at *14 (E.D. Cal. July 16, 2015) (“whether an employer engaged in a good 

faith interactive process with a disabled employee are traditional questions of fact”); 

Poole v. Centennial Imports, Inc., No. 2:12-CV-00647-APG, 2014 WL 2090810, at *7 

(D. Nev. May 19, 2014) (“Whether [the defendant] satisfied the statutory requirement of 

an interactive process is a question of fact for the jury.”); see also Beem, 2011 WL 

4852301, at *9 (although a reasonable jury “could determine that [plaintiff] was 

responsible for the breakdown in the interactive process when she declined the 8:30 a.m. 

start time” in 2005, it could also determine that the defendant was responsible for the 

breakdown when it denied plaintiff’s request to work the graveyard shift in 2009). 

 

1 Samper applies to interactive process claims because these claims are a type of reasonable accommodation claim. See, e.g., Kramer v. Tosco Corp., 233 F. App’x 593, 596 (9th Cir. 2007).

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The City argues that the Court should provide a separate jury instruction on each 

possible point of breakdown. Doc. 96 at 4. The Court does not agree. The jury may 

consider the totality of the circumstances and make its own determination as to when, if 

ever, the breakdown occurred. See Ellis v. Ethicon, Inc., No. CIV.A. 05-726 FLW, 2010 

WL 3810884, at *3 (D.N.J. Sept. 21, 2010) (“by considering the totality of the 

circumstances, the jury could have found that [the defendant’s] overall involvement in 

the interactive process was in bad faith”); see generally Beck, 75 F.3d at 1135 (for 

purposes of determining when breakdown occurred, “[n]o hard and fast rule will 

suffice”). 

5. The City’s memorandum asks the Court to prevent Hill from recovering 

post-separation damages on the theory that these damages could not have been caused by 

the City’s failure to engage in the interactive process. Doc. 93 at 4-6. The Court again 

concludes, however, that Hill can recover post-separation damages if she proves that such 

damages were caused by the City‘s failure to engage in the interactive process in good 

faith. As the Ninth Circuit explained in Barnett, an employer who fails to engage in the 

interactive process in good faith “face[s] liability for the remedies imposed by the 

statute.” 228 F.3d at 1116. Those remedies include compensatory damages for failure to 

provide a reasonable accommodation. See 42 U.S.C. § 1981a(2) (providing for recovery 

of compensatory damages against defendant who violates § 102(b)(5) of the ADA (42 

U.S.C. § 12112(b)(5)) by failing to make reasonable accommodation). To meet this 

burden, Plaintiff will need to prove at least the following elements of her ADA claim: 

(1) she was a qualified individual with a disability; (2) she requested additional 

accommodations for her disability; (3) the City did not make a good faith effort to assist 

her in obtaining additional accommodations; (4) the City’s failure to engage in good faith 

prevented the parties from implementing an available reasonable accommodation that 

would have allowed Plaintiff to discharge the essential functions of her position; and 

(5) as a result, Plaintiff was unable to discharge the essential functions of her position and 

lost her position. See Taylor v. Phoenixville 299 School Dist., 184 F.3d 296, 319-20 (3d 

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Cir. 1999); 42 U.S.C. § 12112(b)(5)(A) (employer violates the ADA by “not making 

reasonable accommodations to the known physical or mental limitations of an otherwise 

qualified individual with a disability”). The Court does not propose this language as the 

final wording of the relevant jury instruction, but instead will confer with the parties 

regarding the precise wording of the jury instructions. 

Dated this 24th day of June, 2016. 

Case 2:13-cv-02315-DGC Document 133 Filed 06/24/16 Page 6 of 6