Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-96-07089/USCOURTS-caDC-96-07089-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Etim U. Aka
Appellant
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Amicus Curiae for Petitioner
Washington Hospital Center
Appellee

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued March 31, 1997 Decided June 20, 1997 

No. 96-7089

ETIM U. AKA,

APPELLANT

v.

WASHINGTON HOSPITAL CENTER,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 94cv01281)

James L. Kestell argued the cause and filed the briefs for 

appellant.

Henry Morris, Jr. argued the cause for appellee, with 

whom Anne M. Hamilton and Stewart S. Manela were on the 

briefs. Samuel K. Charnoff entered an appearance for appellee.

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Barbara L. Sloan, Attorney, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, argued the cause and filed the brief for 

amicus curiae.

Before: WALD, HENDERSON and TATEL, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge WALD.

Opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part filed by 

Circuit Judge HENDERSON.

WALD, Circuit Judge: On March 29, 1996, the district court 

granted summary judgment to Washington Hospital Center 

("Washington Hospital") in this action alleging employment 

discrimination in hiring and transfer decisions based on disability, age, and national origin. See Aka v. Washington 

Hosp. Ctr., Civ. No. 94-1281, 1996 WL 435026 (D.D.C. March 

29, 1996). The appellant, Etim U. Aka, now challenges that 

grant of summary judgment to Washington Hospital, as well 

as the denial of his own motion for summary judgment on one 

of his claims. We hold that the district court erred in 

granting summary judgment to Washington Hospital with 

regard to one of the challenged hiring decisions, and with 

regard to Aka's claim that Washington Hospital has failed to 

satisfy its obligation under the Americans with Disabilities 

Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq. ("the ADA") to offer 

Aka a "reasonable accommodation" to his disability, and we 

remand the case for trial of these claims; we affirm the 

district court's grant of summary judgment to Washington 

Hospital with regard to Aka's remaining claims.

I. BACKGROUND

Etim U. Aka, a 55-year-old man born and raised in Nigeria, began working for Washington Hospital as an Operation 

Room Orderly in 1972, two years after he emigrated from 

Nigeria to the United States. His orderly job, which involved 

transporting patients and other materials to and from Washington Hospital's operating room, required substantial 

amounts of heavy lifting and pushing. Aka worked as an 

orderly for Washington Hospital for twenty years, maintainUSCA Case #96-7089 Document #280437 Filed: 06/20/1997 Page 2 of 54
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ing a good employment record and earning a Bachelor's 

Degree and a Master's Degree in Health Service Management to boot. As an orderly, Aka was a member of the 

bargaining unit represented by the Service Employees International Union Local 722.

Aka took a medical leave of absence beginning on August 

22, 1991, giving diabetes as the reason. He returned to work 

on October 1, 1991, but then was hospitalized four days later, 

for a heart condition. Aka underwent bypass surgery in 

November, and was in rehabilitation for several months afterward. In late November, a Personnel Relations Representative from Washington Hospital visited Aka and advised him to 

apply for another medical leave of absence, which he did. 

Washington Hospital granted his request, retroactive to October 5, 1991. In April of 1992, Aka's doctor released him from 

the hospital and instructed him to avoid activity requiring 

more than a "light or moderate level of exertion." Aka 

sought a new job at the hospital which would be consistent 

with this limitation, but Washington Hospital informed him 

that none were available, and placed him on an eighteenmonth "job-search leave" retroactive to April 7, 1992; this 

status permitted Aka to retain his seniority and to receive the 

preference accorded to Washington Hospital employees when 

competing for positions with non-employee applicants. (Had 

Aka instead continued on regular medical leave past October 

5, 1992, Washington Hospital would at that point have been 

entitled under the collective bargaining agreement to treat 

Aka's leave of absence as a resignation.) The Personnel 

Relations Representative informed Aka that it was his responsibility to review Washington Hospital's job postings and 

to apply for any vacant jobs that interested him.

In early 1993, Aka applied for a Financial Manager position 

that paid a higher salary than his orderly position, but 

Washington Hospital did not give him an interview. The 

Personnel Relations Representative advised Aka to apply for 

lower-paying positions, specifically suggesting the positions of 

File Clerk and Unit Clerk. Aka applied for the position of 

Central Pharmacy Technician in May of 1993; this position 

involved a variety of clerical tasks related to the filling of 

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prescriptions, such as patient census checks, charge processing, and stock replacement. Washington Hospital's Assistant 

Director of Pharmacy Clinical Services interviewed Aka for 

this position, but gave the job to employee Jaime Valenzuela 

instead.

In July of 1993, four vacancies opened up in the position of 

File Clerk. The File Clerk position entailed an array of 

clerical duties, such as updating insurance, preparing bills and 

reports, and classifying, indexing, and purging documents. 

Aka applied for these File Clerk positions in early July. 

Washington Hospital's Supervisor of Credit and Collections 

interviewed Aka for these positions, but did not select him for 

any of them; she instead selected two other employees and 

two non-employee applicants. Aka filed a grievance and 

complained to the union about the selection of non-employee 

applicants over employee applicants, which he believed violated the collective bargaining agreement, and the union filed a 

class grievance on this ground on behalf of Aka and another 

employee who had applied for these jobs. Before the Arbitrator ruled on these grievances, Washington Hospital agreed 

to remove the two non-employee hires from these jobs and 

replace them with employee applicants; but still did not give 

any of these positions to Aka. The union continued to press 

the grievances, however, and on November 17, 1994, the 

Arbitrator issued an opinion holding that Washington Hospital had not violated the collective bargaining agreement by 

choosing other employee applicants over Aka. The Arbitrator noted that the Union had "correctly" required Washington 

Hospital to remove the two outside hires because hiring them 

had violated the collective bargaining agreement, Joint Appendix ("J.A.") at 288, but held that Washington Hospital had 

sufficient reason to find that Aka had less relevant experience 

than the other employee applicants eventually selected for 

these jobs, and thus was not obliged by the collective bargaining agreement to give the job to Aka, despite his greater 

seniority. The Arbitrator acknowledged that Aka had "the 

necessary minimal qualifications to be considered for the job," 

had a "solid" evaluation and "good marks" for his ability to 

work with peers, and was "a highly intelligent and motivated 

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man" who "could be expected to grasp the technical aspects of 

the job quite readily," but found that he had less experience 

in billing services and office clerical environments than the 

employee applicants who were selected. Id. at 289. Aka 

continued to apply for other posted positions, including File 

Clerk and Unit Clerk positions, but he was not invited to 

interview for any of these positions.

On June 9, 1994, Aka filed a complaint in the United States 

District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging that 

Washington Hospital's failure to place him in the Central 

Pharmacy Technician or File Clerk positions constituted discrimination on the basis of his disability and national origin in 

violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 

§ 2000e et seq. ("Title VII") and the ADA1; discrimination on 

the basis of his age in violation of the Age Discrimination in 

Employment Act of 1967, 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq. ("the 

ADEA"), and a failure to reinstate him after his medical leave 

in violation of the District of Columbia Family and Medical 

Leave Act, D.C. CODE ANN. § 36-1301 et seq.2 The district 

court granted Washington Hospital's motion for summary 

judgment with regard to all of Aka's claims on March 29, 

1996.

II. DISCUSSION

A party's motion for summary judgment on a claim should 

not be granted unless the moving party demonstrates that 

_______________

1 Although in his complaint Aka improperly submitted that Washington Hospital's disability-based discrimination had violated his 

rights under Title VII (rather than under the ADA), Washington 

Hospital acknowledged in its motion for summary judgment that 

Aka's claim "apparent[ly]" described a violation of the ADA, J.A. at 

31 n.1, and the district court treated this part of Aka's complaint as 

a claim brought under the ADA. 

2 Aka concedes that the district court's grant to Washington 

Hospital of summary judgment on his claim based on the District of 

Columbia Family and Medical Leave Act was appropriate, and does 

not appeal that portion of the district court's order. See Brief of 

Appellant Etim U. Aka at 7 n.1. 

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the other party has failed to present a genuine issue of 

material fact with regard to that claim, and that the movant is 

entitled to prevail as a matter of law. See FED. R. CIV. P.

56(C); WRIGHT ET AL., FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 2711, 

at 555 (2d ed. 1983). When the party against whom summary 

judgment is granted appeals to this court, we review the trial 

court's grant of summary judgment de novo; we uphold the 

grant of summary judgment only if the record, viewed in the 

light most favorable to the party against whom summary 

judgment was granted, indicates that the non-moving party 

presented no genuine issue as to any material fact, and that 

on the basis of the record evidence no reasonable factfinder 

could have returned a verdict for the non-moving party. See, 

e.g., Tao v. Freeh, 27 F.3d 635, 638 (D.C. Cir. 1994). If we 

find that, viewed in this light, the record indicates that the 

non-moving party has presented genuine issues of material 

fact relevant to the claim, we must reverse the grant of 

summary judgment and remand the matter so that the factfinder can resolve those issues.

Our review of grants of summary judgment on claims of 

employment discrimination involves two further considerations. First, because employment discrimination claims center on the issue of an employer's intent, and "writings directly 

supporting a claim of intentional discrimination are rarely, if 

ever, found among an employer's corporate papers," Gallo v. 

Prudential Residential Services, 22 F.3d 1219, 1224 (2d Cir. 

1994), an added measure of "rigor," McCoy v. WGN Continental Broadcasting Company, 957 F.2d 368, 371 (7th Cir. 

1992), or "cautio[n]," Gallo, 22 F.3d at 1224, is appropriate in 

applying this standard to motions for summary judgment in 

employment discrimination cases. Courts reviewing such 

motions must bear in mind that a factfinder could infer 

intentional discrimination even in the absence of crystal-clear 

documentary evidence filed at the summary judgment stage. 

See, e.g., Devera v. Adams, 874 F. Supp. 17, 21 (D.D.C. 1995); 

Ross v. Runyon, 859 F. Supp. 15, 21-22 (D.D.C. 1994), aff'd,

No. 95-5080, 1995 WL 791567 (D.C. Cir. Dec. 7, 1995). The 

district court correctly adopted this heightened standard in 

its memorandum opinion, noting that "[i]n discrimination 

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cases summary judgment must be approached with special 

caution...." Aka, 1996 WL 435026 at *4.

Second, when deciding whether a plaintiff alleging unlawful 

employment discrimination has presented sufficient evidence 

to survive a summary judgment motion, we must consider the 

evidence in light of the three-part procedure set out for such 

claims by the Supreme Court's decision in McDonnell Douglas Corporation v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973), as well as the 

Court's elaborations on that procedure in Texas Department 

of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248 (1981) and 

Saint Mary's Honor Center v. Hicks, 509 U.S. 502 (1993).

In McDonnell Douglas, the Court established a three-part 

protocol governing the order and burdens of proof in cases 

alleging discrimination in violation of Title VII. First, the 

complainant must establish a prima facie case of prohibited 

discrimination. See McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 802. If 

he succeeds, the burden then shifts to the employer to 

articulate legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for the challenged action. See id. Should the employer succeed in 

presenting such reasons, the burden then returns to the 

complainant, who must prove that the employer's proffered 

reasons for the challenged actions were merely a pretext for 

unlawful discrimination. See id. at 804-05. In Burdine, the 

Court held that in producing nondiscriminatory reasons for 

its challenged action, the employer is not obligated to support 

these reasons with objective evidence sufficient to satisfy the 

"preponderance of the evidence" standard, see Burdine, 450 

U.S. at 259-60, and that the plaintiff at all times retains the 

ultimate burden of persuasion. See id. at 253.

In the litigation underlying Saint Mary's Honor Center v. 

Hicks, Melvin Hicks sued his former employer, Saint Mary's 

Honor Center, alleging that Saint Mary's had discharged him 

because of his race, thereby violating Title VII. See Hicks,

509 U.S. at 505. After a full bench trial, the district court 

found that the reasons the employer had proffered as nondiscriminatory motivations for its decision to terminate the 

plaintiff were not the real reasons behind that decision. See 

id. at 508. But the district court went on to hold that the 

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plaintiff had not proven that his race was the actual factor 

motivating that decision. See id. Thus, the district court 

found in favor of the employer based upon its factual findings 

and upon its understanding of the legal significance of those 

findings. The Eighth Circuit set aside the district court's 

determination, explaining that the district court had misunderstood the legal consequences of its factual findings. Specifically, the Eighth Circuit held that once the district court 

had found that the employer's proffered nondiscriminatory 

reasons for the challenged decision were not the real reasons 

motivating that decision, the district court should have gone 

no further, because once the factfinder has rejected the 

employer's proffered nondiscriminatory reasons for its challenged action, the plaintiff is entitled to judgment as a matter 

of law. See id.

The Supreme Court in Hicks rejected the Eighth Circuit's 

interpretation of the McDonnell Douglas framework. The 

Court held that, under the proper understanding of that 

framework, "[t]he factfinder's disbelief of the reasons put 

forward by the defendant (particularly if disbelief is accompanied by a suspicion of mendacity) may, together with the 

elements of the prima facie case, suffice to show intentional 

discrimination." Id. at 511. Thus, the Supreme Court established that, when presented with sufficient evidence to find 

both that the plaintiff has made a prima facie case and that 

the employer's proffered nondiscriminatory reasons for the 

challenged actions were not credible, the factfinder can properly find that the defendant employer has intentionally discriminated against the plaintiff. The Court repeated this 

principle twice more in the sentence following the one quoted 

above, saying: "[R]ejection of the defendant's proffered reasons will permit the trier of fact to infer the ultimate fact of 

intentional discrimination," and: "[U]pon such rejection, [n]o 

additional proof of discrimination is required," id. (footnote, 

citation, and internal quotation marks omitted), and then once 

more in a footnote: "[R]ejection of the defendant's proffered 

reasons is enough at law to sustain a finding of discrimination...." Id. at 511 n.4. See also Deborah C. Malamud, The 

Last Minuet: Disparate Treatment after Hicks, 93 MICH. L.

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REV. 2229, 2307 n.253 (1995) ("[T]he Hicks majority goes out 

of its way to say that the factfinder is permitted to find for 

the plaintiff on no more than proof of the prima facie case and 

disbelief of the plaintiff's reasons.").3

With the Hicks principle firmly in one hand, and the 

fundamentals of summary judgment in the other, our role in 

reviewing a grant of summary judgment to the employer in 

an employment discrimination case is clear: We must set 

aside the grant of summary judgment to the employer if the 

record indicates that the plaintiff presented sufficient evidence to cause a reasonable factfinder to find that the plaintiff had a prima facie case, and that the employer's proffered 

nondiscriminatory reasons for its actions were not credible; 

when presented with such evidence, the factfinder may properly find for the plaintiff, and we have no power to snatch 

away from the factfinder crucial factual determinations that it 

is expressly permitted to make. See United States v. General 

Motors Corp., 518 F.2d 420, 441 (D.C. Cir. 1975) ("[L]itigants 

may not be cut off from their right to trial 'if they really have 

issues to try.' ") (quoting Sartor v. Arkansas Natural Gas 

Corp., 321 U.S. 620, 627 (1944)); see also Anderson v. Liberty 

Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 249 (1986) ("[A]t the summary 

judgment stage the judge's function is not himself to weigh 

the evidence and determine the truth of the matter but to 

determine whether there is a genuine issue for trial."); 

WRIGHT ET AL., supra, § 2716, at 654-55.

Two of this court's recent decisions have interpreted Hicks

in precisely this fashion. In Barbour v. Merrill, 48 F.3d 1270 

(D.C. Cir.), cert. granted in part, 116 S. Ct. 805 (1996), cert. 

dismissed, 116 S. Ct. 1037 (1996), and Kolstad v. American 

Dental Association, 108 F.3d 1431 (D.C. Cir. 1997), rehearing 

_______________

3 The four dissenting Justices in Hicks had no quarrel with the 

majority's statements excerpted here; rather, they would have 

tipped the balance further toward the plaintiffs in employment 

discrimination cases than did the majority, by affirming the Eighth 

Circuit's interpretation of McDonnell Douglas and Burdine. See 

Hicks, 509 U.S. at 525-43 (Souter, J., dissenting) (joined by White, 

Blackmun, and Stevens, JJ.). 

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in part granted on other grounds, (May 28, 1997) (Nos. 

96-7030, 96-7047), we observed that the Hicks Court established that a factfinder may infer discrimination based upon 

the combination of the plaintiff's prima facie case and the 

plaintiff's presentation of evidence sufficient to "discredit" the 

employer's proffered nondiscriminatory reasons for its challenged action, and concluded that, under Hicks, a defendant's 

motion for judgment as a matter of law4 must not be granted 

when the plaintiff has presented such evidence. Kolstad, 108 

F.3d at 1436-37 (quoting Barbour, 48 F.3d at 1277).5In so 

construing Hicks, Barbour and Kolstad mirror the straightforward interpretation of that decision's clear language that 

has been adopted by all but two of the federal circuit courts, 

as well as by the government agency charged with enforcement of the employment discrimination laws. See Combs v. 

Plantation Patterns, 106 F.3d 1519, 1529 (11th Cir. 1997) 

("Based on the Supreme Court's clear statement in the 

majority opinion in Hicks, read together with the rationale of 

the dissenting justices, we understand the Hicks Court to 

_______________

4

In Barbour and Kolstad, we reviewed district court denials of 

defendants' post-trial motions for judgment as a matter of law. See 

Barbour, 48 F.3d at 1274; Kolstad, 108 F.3d at 1435. We consider 

Barbour and Kolstad apposite to the case at bar, insofar as the 

standard applicable to summary judgment motions "mirrors the 

standard for a directed verdict [also known as 'judgment as a 

matter of law'] under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50(a) ... 

'The primary difference between the two motions is procedural; 

summary judgment motions are usually made before trial and 

decided on documentary evidence, while directed verdict motions 

are made at trial and decided on the evidence that has been 

admitted.' " Anderson, 477 U.S. at 250-51 (quoting Bill Johnson's 

Restaurants, Inc. v. NLRB, 461 U.S. 731, 745 n.11 (1983)). 

5 Although in these cases we "speculate[d]" about the reasoning 

that the juries might have followed in returning verdicts for the 

plaintiff, we were careful in each case to note that such speculation 

was unnecessary to our decisions because of Hicks. See Barbour,

48 F.3d at 1277 ("[W]e need not speculate about the jury's reasoning...."); Kolstad, 108 F.3d at 1437 ("As in Barbour ... we need 

not speculate about the jury's reasoning...."). 

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have been unanimous that disbelief of the defendant's proffered reasons, together with the prima facie case, is sufficient 

circumstantial evidence to support a finding of discrimination. 

Therefore, it follows from Hicks that a plaintiff is entitled to 

survive summary judgment, and judgment as a matter of law, 

if there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate the existence of 

a genuine issue of fact as to the truth of each of the 

employer's proffered reasons for its challenged action."); 

Sheridan v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Co., 100 F.3d 1061, 

1067 (3d Cir. 1996) (en banc), petition for cert. filed, 65 

U.S.L.W. 3571 (U.S. Feb. 3, 1997) (No. 96-1231) ("[A] plaintiff 

may survive summary judgment ... if the plaintiff produced 

sufficient evidence to raise a genuine issue of fact as to 

whether the employer's proffered reasons were not its true 

reasons for the challenged employment action."); Randle v. 

City of Aurora, 69 F.3d 441, 451 (10th Cir. 1995) ("If the 

plaintiff succeeds in showing a prima facie case and presents 

evidence that the defendant's proffered reason for the employment decision was pretextuali.e., unworthy of belief, 

the plaintiff ... is entitled to go to trial."); Perdomo v. 

Browner, 67 F.3d 140, 145 (7th Cir. 1995) ("Because a factfinder may infer intentional discrimination from an employer's untruthfulness, evidence that calls truthfulness into question precludes a summary judgment."); EEOC v. Ethan 

Allen, Inc., 44 F.3d 116, 120 (2d Cir. 1994) (vacating a grant 

of judgment as a matter of law to the defendant, on the 

ground that the plaintiff had presented sufficient evidence to 

permit a reasonable factfinder to "reject [the] defendant's 

proffered reasons for [the] challenged employment action and 

thus [to make] the ultimate inference of discrimination."); 

Manzer v. Diamond Shamrock Chem. Co., 29 F.3d 1078, 1083 

(6th Cir. 1994) (quoting Gaworski v. ITT Commercial Fin. 

Corp., 17 F.3d 1104, 1109 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 946 

(1994)); Gaworski, 17 F.3d at 1110 ("The elements of the 

plaintiff's prima facie case are ... present and the evidence is 

sufficient to allow a reasonable jury to reject the defendant's 

non-discriminatory explanations. The 'ultimate question' of 

discrimination must therefore be left to the trier of fact to 

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decide."); Mitchell v. Data Gen. Corp., 12 F.3d 1310, 1316 

(4th Cir. 1993) (noting that a defendant in an employment 

discrimination case can obtain summary judgment "in one of 

two ways. He can demonstrate that the plaintiff's proffered 

evidence fails to establish a prima facie case, or, if it does, the 

defendant can present evidence that provides a legitimate 

nondiscriminatory explanation about which the plaintiff does 

not create a factual dispute.") (emphasis added); Washington 

v. Garrett, 10 F.3d 1421, 1433 (9th Cir. 1993) ("If a plaintiff 

succeeds in raising a genuine factual issue regarding the 

authenticity of the employer's stated motive, summary judgment is inappropriate, because it is for the trier of fact to 

decide which story is to be believed."); Sheridan, 100 F.3d at 

1068 (stating that the position taken by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") as amicus curiae

comported with its holding).

We acknowledge that our colleague's proposed contrary 

reading of Hicks, see opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part ("partial dissent") at 1-10, is not entirely novel, 

inasmuch as it reflects the approach taken by two of our 

sister circuits and advocated in a 1995 law review article, but 

we do not find in these contrary sources any compelling 

reason to abandon Barbour and Kolstad and depart from the 

plain language of the Hicks opinion. Cf. partial dissent at 4-5 

(citing Rhodes v. Guiberson Oil Tools, 75 F.3d 989, 994 (5th 

Cir. 1996) (en banc), LeBlanc v. Great American Ins. Co., 6 

F.3d 836, 843 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 511 U.S. 1018 (1994), and 

Malamud, supra, at 2307-11).

In Rhodes, the Fifth Circuit announced an interpretation of 

Hicks that was not necessary to the resolution of that case, 

but that it has since followed in reviewing the sufficiency of 

the evidence in discrimination cases, see, e.g., Grimes v. Texas 

Department of Mental Health, 102 F.3d 137, 143 (5th Cir. 

1996); under this interpretation, a court may grant summary 

judgment to a defendant even if the plaintiff has presented 

sufficient evidence to establish a prima facie case and to 

enable a reasonable factfinder to conclude that the employer's 

proffered reasons were not the real reasons motivating the 

challenged action, if the court finds that the evidence is 

nevertheless insufficient to support a reasonable inference 

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that the action was motivated by discriminatory animus. See 

Rhodes, 75 F.3d at 994. While the Supreme Court stated 

that "rejection of the defendant's proffered reasons will permit the trier of fact to infer the ultimate fact of intentional 

discrimination," Hicks, 509 U.S. at 511 (first emphasis added), 

the Rhodes court declared that "the evidence allowing rejection of the employer's proffered reasons will often, perhaps 

usually, permit a finding of discrimination without additional 

evidence." Rhodes, 75 F.3d at 994 (emphasis added). The 

Rhodes court offered two reasons for its departure from the 

plain language of Hicksthe first adopted from Professor 

Malamud's law review article, see Malamud, supra, and the 

second from the First Circuit's dictum in footnote three of 

Woods v. Friction Materials, Incorporated, 30 F.3d 255 (1st 

Cir. 1994) (discussed infra). See Rhodes, 75 F.3d at 994. We 

think it telling that Professor Malamud proffers her theory 

about the meaning of Hicks only after banishing to a footnote 

the Hicks majority's three clearest statements regarding the 

quantum of evidence sufficient to permit a finding of intentional discriminationalthough not without acknowledging (in 

the footnote) that by these statements the Court "goes out of 

its way to say that the factfinder is permitted to find for the 

plaintiff on no more than proof of the prima facie case and 

disbelief of the plaintiff's reasons." Malamud, supra, at 2307 

n.253.

Like the Fifth Circuit, the First Circuit developed its 

approach to interpreting Hicks by first announcing it in dicta,

and then following this dicta in subsequent decisions. In 

Woods,6the First Circuit reviewed a district court's grant of 

_______________

6 Our colleague seeks support in the First Circuit's earlier decision in LeBlanc, but no support for her position can be found there. 

Cf. partial dissent at 4-5 (citing LeBlanc). In LeBlanc, the First 

Circuit stated that after Hicks, a plaintiff seeking to survive the 

defendant's summary judgment motion must present adequate direct or circumstantial evidence to enable a reasonable factfinder to 

find that the defendant's challenged action was motivated by discriminatory animus. See id. at 843. But the LeBlanc court expressly treated evidence discrediting the defendant's proffered nondiscriminatory reasons as circumstantial evidence of discriminatory 

animus. See id. at 845-47. Of course, this aspect of LeBlanc

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summary judgment to the defendant on claims of illegal 

discrimination on the basis of race, age, and handicap. See 

Woods, 30 F.3d at 257. The court concluded that the plaintiff 

had failed to present evidence sufficient to discredit the 

defendant's proffered nondiscriminatory reasons in the mind 

of a reasonable factfinder. See id. at 262. Although it was 

therefore unnecessary to do so, the court declared (in a 

footnote) that Hicks did not preclude summary judgment for 

the defendant in cases in which the plaintiff's evidence is

sufficient to discredit the defendant's proffered nondiscriminatory reasons in the mind of a reasonable factfinder. See id.

at 260-61 n.3. The First Circuit has since relied upon the 

Woods footnote to affirm summary judgment for defendants 

based on the conclusion that the plaintiff failed to provide 

sufficient evidence to enable a reasonable factfinder to find 

discriminatory animus, without inquiring into whether the 

plaintiff had provided sufficient evidence to discredit the 

defendant's proffered nondiscriminatory reasons. See, e.g., 

Barbour v. Dynamics Research Corp., 63 F.3d 32, 38-42 (1st 

Cir.), cert. denied, 116 S. Ct. 914 (1996). The rationale 

offered in the First Circuit's Woods footnote for departing 

from the plain language of Hicks is that, hypothetically, the 

evidence before the factfinder in a particular case could not 

only permit the factfinder to conclude that the defendant's 

proffered reasons for its action were not the real reasons, but 

could also compel the factfinder to conclude that the action 

_______________

conflicts sharply with our colleague's repeated assertions that Aka's 

evidence discrediting Washington Hospital's proffered nondiscriminatory reasons for choosing Valenzuela over him did not constitute 

evidence of discriminatory animus. Cf. partial dissent at 2, 3, 6, 9, 

10. The LeBlanc court went on to hold that the plaintiff had not 

presented sufficient evidence to discredit the defendant's proffered 

reasons in the mind of a reasonable factfinder, thereby leaving open 

the question of whether a plaintiff who does present sufficient 

evidence to discredit the defendant's proffered reasons must survive 

the defendant's summary judgment motion. See LeBlanc, 6 F.3d at 

846-47. 

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was motivated by another, nondiscriminatory reason that the 

defendant preferred not to disclose. Thus, for example, if the 

employer's true motivation was a desire to shield its own acts 

of embezzlement, the employer might choose to proffer alternative explanations which the plaintiff could succeed in debunking, and yet such overwhelming evidence of the defendant's embezzlement-shielding motivation could spill into the 

record that no reasonable factfinder could infer that the 

defendant was motivated by discriminatory animus. See 

Woods, 30 F.3d at 260-61 n.3. We note, first, that the Woods

footnote's hypothetical seems extraordinarily unlikely: When 

both parties in the litigation prefer to exclude evidence supporting a certain conclusion, how might the record nevertheless become inundated with such overwhelming evidence of it 

that no reasonable factfinder could avoid reaching that conclusion? Aside from its improbability, the Woods footnote's 

hypothetical is irrelevant to the Hicks standard, because that 

standard defines the quantum of evidence that is sufficient to 

permit a jury to find intentional discriminationit establishes 

that "[n]o additional proof of discrimination is required" after 

that threshold has been crossed, Hicks, 509 U.S. at 511 

(internal quotation marks omitted); the possibility that overwhelming evidence of extraneous propositions that neither 

party has sought to support might nevertheless come before 

the factfinder does nothing to alter such a standard.

Although our duty to follow a rule of law proclaimed by the 

Supreme Court does not turn on our agreement with the rule, 

we are comfortable that our colleague's attacks on what we 

and the majority of our sister circuits perceive to be the 

Hicks standard do not reveal any illogic or illegality in our 

perception of that case's meaning. Our colleague's central 

assumption appears to be that the Hicks standard permits a 

finding of discrimination based on no relevant evidence at all, 

because even a plaintiff who has made a prima facie case and 

discredited the employer's proffered nondiscriminatory reasons has not necessarily presented any evidence that the 

employer's true motivation was discriminatory animus. See, 

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e.g., partial dissent at 3 ("One searches the majority opinion 

in vain ... for any analysis of the connection between Aka's 

attack on Washington Hospital's proffered reasons and his 

evidence of 'unlawful discrimination.' "). We disagree. As 

Chief Judge Posner has observed in decisions rendered both 

before and after Hicks, the "common sense behind the rule of 

McDonnell Douglas" is that "[i]f the only reason an employer 

offers for firing an employee is a lie, the inference that the 

real reason was a forbidden one ... may rationally be 

drawn." Shager v. Upjohn Co., 913 F.2d 398, 401 (7th Cir. 

1990) (Posner, J.). That is, the fact that the employer meets 

the plaintiff's prima facie case only with nondiscriminatory 

motivations that are "unworthy of belief" constitutes circumstantial evidence of the fact that discriminatory animus was 

the employer's true motivation. Wallace v. SMC Pneumatics, Inc., 103 F.3d 1394, 1397 (7th Cir. 1997) (Posner, C.J.). 

In a case decided long before Hicks, then-Justice (now Chief 

Justice) Rehnquist made the same observation: "[W]hen all 

legitimate reasons for rejecting an applicant have been eliminated as possible reasons for the employer's actions, it is 

more likely than not the employer, who we generally assume 

acts only with some reason, based his decision on an impermissible consideration such as race." Furnco Constr. Corp. v. 

Waters, 438 U.S. 567, 577 (1978); see also Wallace, 103 F.3d 

at 1400 (citing Furnco); Sheridan, 100 F.3d at 1069 (same); 

Catherine J. Lanctot, The Defendant Lies and the Plaintiff 

Loses: The Fallacy of the 'Pretext-Plus' Rule in Employment Discrimination Cases, 43 HASTINGS L.J. 57, 111-35 

(1991). Not only is this insight perfectly consistent with logic 

and with "common experience," Furnco, 438 U.S. at 577, it is 

the linchpin without which the McDonnell Douglas burdenshifting procedure would be virtually pointlessafter all, the 

"entire purpose" of the McDonnell Douglas procedure is "to 

compensate for the fact that direct evidence of intentional 

discrimination is hard to come by." Price Waterhouse v. 

Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228, 271 (1989) (O'Connor, J., concurring); 

see also TWA v. Thurston, 469 U.S. 111, 121 (1985) ("The 

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las are designed to assure that the plaintiff has his day in 

court despite the unavailability of direct evidence.") (internal 

quotation marks omitted); United States Postal Serv. Bd. of 

Governors v. Aikens, 460 U.S. 711, 716 (1983) ("There will 

seldom be 'eyewitness' testimony as to the employer's mental 

processes."). Thus, because evidence sufficient to establish 

the plaintiff's prima facie case and to discredit the defendant's proffered nondiscriminatory reasons is evidence sufficient to permit the factfinder to find intentional discrimination, and because "if the inference of improper motive can be 

drawn, there must be a trial," Shager, 913 F.2d at 401, 

summary judgment for the defendant must not be granted 

when such evidence has been presented.

Our colleague also seeks to impugn the Hicks standard by 

pointing out that certain types of non-credible proffered 

reasons might be "more probative" of discrimination than 

others, and might therefore allow the factfinder to infer 

intentional discrimination "more readily." Partial dissent at 

2. Of course, we have no power to bar the factfinder from 

making permissible inferences simply because we suspect 

that those inferences are "less readily" made than others. 

Rather, a claim may be withheld from the factfinder by 

summary judgment only if the plaintiff has failed to create a 

genuine issue of material fact with regard to that claim. See

FED. R. CIV. P. 56(c). A material fact certainly can be "in 

issue" even when a judge believes that one conclusion regarding that fact might be drawn "more readily" than another.

Thus, the fundamental soundness of the Hicks standard, 

together with the clarity and repetition attending the Supreme Court's articulation of it, most probably accounts for 

the fact that all but two of our sister circuits and the EEOC 

have joined us in our "spectacular wrong turn." Partial 

dissent at 1.

Although the McDonnell Douglas decision dealt explicitly 

only with Title VII, this court has held that the McDonnell 

Douglas framework also applies to ADEA cases, see Koger v. 

Reno, 98 F.3d 631, 633 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (citing Arnold v. 

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United States Postal Serv., 863 F.2d 994, 996 (D.C. Cir. 

1988)). Some controversy exists regarding whether, and to 

what extent, the McDonnell Douglas framework applies also 

to discrimination claims brought under the ADA. The Third, 

Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, and Eighth Circuits have held that 

the McDonnell Douglas standard is applicable to ADA cases. 

See Price v. S-B Power Tool, 75 F.3d 362, 364-65 (8th Cir.), 

cert. denied, 117 S. Ct. 274 (1996); Daigle v. Liberty Life Ins. 

Co., 70 F.3d 394, 396 (5th Cir. 1995); Newman v. GHS 

Osteopathic, Inc., 60 F.3d 153, 156-58 (3d Cir. 1995); DeLuca 

v. Winer Indus., Inc., 53 F.3d 793, 797 (7th Cir. 1995); Ennis 

v. National Ass'n of Bus. and Educ. Radio, Inc., 53 F.3d 55, 

57-58 (4th Cir. 1995). However, as some of these courts (as 

well as some commentators) have observed, there are significant differences between certain types of disability-based 

discrimination and other categories of employment discrimination, and thus the McDonnell Douglas framework should 

not be reflexively applied to ADA cases, but should be 

preceded by a careful consideration of its appropriateness to 

the particular disability discrimination claim before the court. 

See, e.g., Ennis, 53 F.3d at 57-58 (observing that courts have 

applied the McDonnell Douglas standard in ADA cases "at 

least in those circumstances where the defendant disavows 

any reliance on discriminatory reasons for its adverse employment action"); see also Kevin W. Williams, Note, The 

Reasonable Accommodation Difference: The Effect of Applying the Burden Shifting Frameworks Developed Under Title 

VII in Disparate Treatment Cases to Claims Brought Under 

Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 18 BERKELEY J.

EMP. & LAB. L. 98 (1997) (arguing that the McDonnell Douglas framework should be applied to ADA cases wherein the 

employer's explanation for the challenged action is wholly 

unrelated to the plaintiff's disability, but that a different 

standard should apply to cases in which the employer acknowledges having taken the plaintiff's disability into account).

This court has not directly addressed the question of the 

applicability of the McDonnell Douglas framework to ADA 

cases, but in Barth v. Gelb, 2 F.3d 1180, 1186 (D.C. Cir. 1993), 

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we suggested that the McDonnell Douglas standard was 

applicable to certain types of claims brought under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. § 701 et seq. The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 is fundamentally similar to the ADA except 

for the facts that the latter extends to private, as well as 

public, employers, and that the ADA includes an express 

listing of suggested "reasonable accommodations." Compare

42 U.S.C. § 12102(2) (defining the term "disability") with 29 

U.S.C. § 706(8)(B) (defining the term "individual with a disability"); compare 42 U.S.C. § 12112(a) (outlawing disabilitybased employment discrimination) with 29 U.S.C. § 794(a) 

(outlawing disability-based discrimination in federally-funded 

programs); see 29 U.S.C. § 794(d) ("The standards used to 

determine whether this section has been violated in a complaint alleging employment discrimination under this section 

shall be the standards applied under title I of the Americans 

with Disabilities Act of 1990...."). In Gelb, we noted that a 

Rehabilitation Act claim may be substantially unlike a Title 

VII claim, in that the employer may acknowledge having 

taken the plaintiff's disability into account when making the 

challenged decision. See Gelb, 2 F.3d at 1186. But we also 

observed that when the employer claims to have taken the 

challenged action for reasons unrelated to the plaintiff's disability, the case involves "the sort of inquiry into subjective 

factsthe employing agency's true motivationthat the 

[McDonnell Douglas] three-step approach was designed to 

address." Id. Because Washington Hospital asserts that 

Aka's disability was not a factor in the challenged hiring 

decisions, we find that the application of the McDonnell 

Douglas framework to Aka's ADA-based challenges to Washington Hospital's hiring decisions is appropriate.

A. The Central Pharmacy Technician Hiring Decision

Aka first argues that he presented sufficient evidence to 

survive Washington Hospital's motion for summary judgment 

on his claims that Washington Hospital had violated his rights 

under Title VII, the ADEA, and the ADA by failing to hire 

him for the job of Central Pharmacy Technician. Washington 

Hospital does not contest Aka's prima facie showing regarding this hiring decision, see Brief of Appellee Washington 

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Hospital Center at 24 n.5, so we turn to the second two stages 

in the McDonnell Douglas framework to determine whether 

summary judgment was appropriate. Washington Hospital 

proffered two nondiscriminatory reasons for its decision to 

hire Jaime Valenzuela for this position instead of Aka. First, 

the Washington Hospital official who made this hiring decision stated in an affidavit that she thought Valenzuela was 

more qualified for the Central Pharmacy Technician position 

because Valenzuela had performed volunteer work in a pharmacy and had learned medical terminology in a prior position 

as a Route Service Representative for a medical laboratory. 

Second, the official stated that Valenzuela had demonstrated 

greater "motivation, initiative and genuine enthusiasm" for 

the position in his interview than Aka had in his. J.A. at 222.

Aka seeks to discredit these proffered nondiscriminatory 

reasons for choosing Valenzuela with several items of evidence. First, Aka cites Valenzuela's application for the Central Pharmacy Technician position as evidence that Valenzuela had extremely little relevant experience, and no relevant 

education. Valenzuela's application indicates that, before getting the Central Pharmacy Technician job, he worked at 

Washington Hospital for less than a year in the position of 

"Process Finish Operator." J.A. at 225. According to Valenzuela's own description, his "main duty" as a Process Finish 

Operator was to "prepare clean linen for delivery," although 

"when needed" he would "work in the folding machines and 

ironer." Id. at 226. The reference to his prior pharmacy 

work appears at the bottom of Valenzuela's application, where 

he stated that he had spent two months volunteering at a 

pharmacy "pricing, stocking, ... filling up cassettes [and] 

pick[ing] up and deliver[ing] medicine from nursing units." 

Valenzuela had no college degree. Id. at 226. Second, Aka 

maintains that he had a good deal more relevant experience 

than Valenzuela, as well as more relevant education. During 

his twenty years as an orderly for Washington Hospital, Aka 

had regularly picked up medicine from the pharmacy, stocked 

medication in the nurses' work area, and prepared orders for 

medications; he had accumulated extensive knowledge of the 

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pharmacy's forms, he knew how most of the medications were 

used in the treatment of patients, and he had a Bachelor's 

Degree and a Master's Degree in Health Service Management. (The hiring official's interview summary report clearly 

shows that she was aware of Aka's twenty years of experience 

with "pharmacy functions" and "drug delivery," J.A. at 229, 

foreclosing any speculation that Aka might for some reason 

have decided to keep his relevant experience hidden from the 

hiring official. Cf. partial dissent at 7-8.) Aka denies that he 

failed to show enthusiasm in his interview, contends that his 

having taken the trouble to apply for the position tends to 

undermine the claim that he was not interested in it, and 

argues that if his ability to discredit this proffered nondiscriminatory reason for the hiring decision turns on a contest 

of credibility between himself and the person who conducted 

the interviews, this contest should be left for the factfinder to 

decide.

As this summary indicates, Aka's evidence7 was sufficient 

to discredit Washington Hospital's proffered nondiscriminatory reasons for this hiring decision in the mind of a reasonable 

factfinder. Valenzuela's "relevant experience" consisted of a 

mere two months of experiencing roughly the same exposure 

to pharmacy procedures that Aka had experienced for some 

twenty years. Against Aka's relevant experience and education in the form of twenty years as an orderly for Washington Hospital, a Bachelor's Degree, and a Master's Degree in 

Health Service Management, Valenzuela offered only two 

months of volunteer pharmacy work, a prior job in which he 

_______________

7 Washington Hospital argues that we should disregard all of 

Aka's arguments that are based on Aka's affidavit, because this 

affidavit fails to satisfy the requirement under Federal Rule of Civil 

Procedure 56(e) that affidavits be made "on personal knowledge," 

FED. R. CIV. P. 56(e), and because much of the material in the 

affidavit upon which Aka relies would not be admissible at trial. 

See Brief of Appellee Washington Hospital Center at 27-29. In 

fact, Aka's evidence summarized above is based on a combination of 

Aka's personal knowledge regarding his own experience and education, and admissible record evidence regarding Valenzuela's experience and education (the latter consisting primarily of information 

included in Valenzuela's job application). 

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learned some medical terminology, less than a year of pressing and folding linens for Washington Hospital, and a high 

school degree. Based on all of this evidence, a reasonable 

factfinder could certainly find that Washington Hospital's 

first proffered nondiscriminatory reason for hiring Valenzuela 

over Aka deserved little credit. With regard to Aka's second 

proffered nondiscriminatory reason for its decisionValenzuela's alleged greater "enthusiasm" in his interviewAka is 

correct to point out that the validity of this proffered reason 

turns on the comparative credibility of himself and the person 

who conducted the interviews, and that this credibility determination should be left for the factfinder to make. Furthermore, in employment discrimination cases, the use of such 

subjective criteria as the relative "enthusiasm" of two applicants must be subjected to particularly close scrutiny. See, 

e.g., Fischbach v. District of Columbia Dep't of Corrections,

86 F.3d 1180, 1184 (D.C. Cir. 1996); Farber v. Massillon Bd. 

of Educ., 917 F.2d 1391, 1399 (6th Cir. 1990); Lilly v. HarrisTeeter Supermarket, 842 F.2d 1496, 1506 (4th Cir. 1988). 

Such close scrutiny counsels against any presumption that an 

employer's reference to subjective criteria constitutes a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the challenged action.

We note that, as the preceding evaluation of Aka's evidence 

demonstrates, we have certainly not adopted a rule whereby 

"the plaintiff automatically survives summary judgment by 

presenting evidence that questions the employer's proffered 

reasons." Partial dissent at 1-2 (emphasis added). Were 

that our position, our analysis would comprise no more than a 

sentence or two, because it is patently obvious that Aka's 

evidence "questions" Washington Hospital's proffered reasons. Aka has presented evidence that "questions" Washington Hospital's proffered reasons for the four file clerk hiring 

decisions as well, and yet we affirm the grant of summary 

judgment to Washington Hospital with regard to those decisions. See infra Part II.B. Rather, as we are required to do 

under controlling precedent laid down by the Supreme Court 

and this court in Hicks, Barbour, and Kolstad, we have 

scrutinized Aka's evidence with a view to determining whether it is sufficient to discredit Washington Hospital's proffered 

reasons in the mind of a reasonable factfinder. See supra.

Aka's evidence is clearly sufficient to do that and more. 

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Pursuant to the same caveat that we expressed in Barbour

and Kolstad regarding "speculation" about the reasoning the 

jury might apply in discrimination cases, see supra, we note 

that the hiring official's focus on Aka's alleged lack of "enthusiasm," when added to Aka's documented qualifications, education, and experience and Washington Hospital's failure to 

come forward with any credible nondiscriminatory reasons for 

not hiring him, could well support the finding that Washington Hospital was motivated by discriminatory animusafter 

all, outward indicia of "enthusiasm" are just the sort of traits 

that advancing age and heart-related disability tend to diminish.

We also note that our colleague not only reaches a contrary 

conclusion with regard to Aka's evidence, she evaluates this 

evidence under a radically different standard from oursone 

that we think constitutes spectacular overreaching. Simply 

stated, our colleague proclaims herself the factfinder, and 

decides all of the issues of material fact relevant to the 

Central Pharmacy Technician hiring decision based on her 

own weighing of the conflicting evidencewithout regard to 

what another reasonable factfinder might conclude from this 

evidence. See partial dissent at 6-10. First, our colleague 

announces that in her view, Aka's superior education was 

"irrelevant" to, and hence "does not cast doubt" on, Washington Hospital's proffered reasons for hiring Valenzuela, because, in her view, Aka's education overqualified him for the 

position. Id. at 6-7. Next, she acknowledges that record 

evidence supports the conclusion that the Washington Hospital official who chose Valenzuela over Aka for this position did 

so with the knowledge that Aka had twenty years of experience at Washington Hospital with "pharmacy functions" and 

"drug delivery," see id. at 8, but she chooses to credit the 

hiring official's explanation for having chosen Valenzuela despite Aka's greater experience. See id. Then she chooses to 

credit as well the hiring official's testimony that Valenzuela 

was "enthusiastic" when he interviewed for the position. See 

id. Finally, having decided all of the issues of material fact 

against Aka by considering and rejecting Aka's evidence, our 

colleague proclaims that, because she found them credible, 

Washington Hospital's proffered reasons were "unrebutted." 

Id. at 9. We are disturbed by our colleague's temporary 

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transmogrification into a factfinder, not because her factual 

findings are unreasonable, but because "at the summary 

judgment stage the judge's function is not h[er]self to weigh 

the evidence and determine the truth of the matter but to 

determine whether there is a genuine issue for trial." 

Anderson, 477 U.S. at 249. Furthermore, the fundamentals 

of summary judgment require us, when reviewing a grant of 

summary judgment to the defendant, to view the evidence in 

the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Using our colleague's most egregious violation of these principles as an 

example, we think it possible that a reasonable factfinder 

could conclude that Aka's Master's Degree in Public Health 

tended to make him better qualified than Valenzuela for the 

Central Pharmacy Technician position, rather than that this 

degree was "irrelevant" to the hiring decision because it 

overqualified him for that position.8See partial dissent at 

6-7. It is unclear whether the partial dissent's aggressive 

invasion of the province of the factfinder is a cousin to its 

attack on the Hicks standard, see supra, but we think these 

two portions of the partial dissent are related at some level, 

because they both reflect a willingness to throw off the 

restraints that controlling law has placed upon this court's 

powers.

Because Aka presented sufficient evidence9to discredit 

Washington Hospital's proffered reasons for passing him over 

_______________

8 Although we have assumed, for the sake of argument, that our 

colleague's resolutions of the issues of material fact relating to the 

Central Pharmacy Technician position were "reasonable," see supra, we note that our colleague's assertion that Aka's Master's 

Degree in Public Health was both "irrelevant" to this position and

rendered him "overqualified" for that position is unsound. If a 

qualification is "irrelevant" to a position, then it obviously cannot 

make one "overqualified" for that position, and vice-versa.

9 Washington Hospital seeks to bolster its case by pointing to a 

portion of its deposition of Aka, wherein Aka failed to respond to a 

question with information sufficient to prove that his national origin, 

age, or disability had motivated Washington Hospital's challenged 

hiring decisions. See Brief of Appellee Washington Hospital Center 

at 34-35. The district court also cites these portions of the deposition for the proposition that "Aka's own testimony makes clear that 

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for the job of Central Pharmacy Technician in the mind of a 

reasonable factfinder, we reverse the district court's grant of 

summary judgment to Washington Hospital on Aka's claim 

that this hiring decision violated his rights under Title VII, 

the ADEA, and the ADA, and remand these claims for trial 

on the merits.

B. The Four File Clerk Hiring Decisions

Aka also claims that he presented sufficient evidence to 

survive summary judgment with regard to his claims that 

Washington Hospital's failure to hire him for one of the four 

File Clerk positions that opened up in July of 1993 violated 

his rights under Title VII, the ADEA, and the ADA. Including the two who were later removed because they were not 

employees (and thus their selection had violated the collective 

bargaining agreement), Washington Hospital chose six applicants over Aka for these positions. Again, because Washington Hospital does not now claim that Aka failed to present a 

prima facie case with regard to these claims, see supra, we 

turn to the latter two parts of the McDonnell Douglas

framework to ascertain whether summary judgment was appropriate.

Washington Hospital proffered two nondiscriminatory reasons for choosing the six successful applicants over Aka. 

First, Washington Hospital argued that these applicants had 

current experience with filing systems and office and clerical 

routines, while Aka had no relevant clerical or office experi-

_______________

the only basis he has for hauling the defendant into Federal Court 

to defend this charge is that he did not get a job." Aka, 1996 WL 

435026 at *5. We disagree that Aka's claims should not survive a 

summary judgment motion because he was unable to summarize all 

of his evidence in response to a question posed by the defendant 

during a deposition. The factfinder will have much more than the 

complainant's answer to a question posed in a deposition from which 

to infer that the challenged employment action reflected intentional 

discrimination. Furthermore, the purpose of the McDonnell Douglas framework is to permit victims of discrimination to secure relief 

even when they don't have access to direct evidence of the employer's discriminatory animus. See Burdine, 450 U.S. at 255-56. 

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ence. The six successful applicants included one who had 

worked as a retail salesperson and as a mailroom clerk and 

had attended a school of business; one who had worked for 

Washington Hospital as a File Clerk in the Patient Financial 

Services Department; one who had worked as Senior Data 

Entry Clerk for George Washington University, as a Senior 

Collections Representative, as a Patient Representative for 

Washington Hospital, and for six months as a File Clerk in 

Washington Hospital's Patient Financial Services Department; one who had done clerical work for Sterling Optical 

and the Hecht Company and had worked for Washington 

Hospital for six months as a File Clerk in the Patient 

Financial Services Department; one who had done clerical 

work at a doctor's office, the United States Postal Service, 

and a law firm; and one who had worked as a file clerk for a 

collection agency. Second, Washington Hospital asserted 

that, unlike Aka, the six successful applicants had significant 

"track record[s] in dealing with customers." J.A. at 233.

Aka attempts to discredit the first reason by pointing out 

that, in his position as an orderly, he had been responsible for 

"properly maintaining health care providers' records at 

[Washington Hospital]," and that his education underlying his 

Bachelor's and Master's Degrees had taught him "how to deal 

with numbers and files carefully." Brief of Appellant Etim 

U. Aka at 27. With regard to the second reason, Aka argues 

that he had as extensive a "track record" as the other 

applicants, because he had "deal[t] with the hospital's customers" (i.e., its patients) as an orderly. Id. at 28.

Aka's evidence could not discredit Washington Hospital's 

proffered nondiscriminatory reasons for these hiring decisions 

in the mind of a reasonable factfinder. All of the six successful applicants offered clerical and office experience more 

directly relevant to the File Clerk positions than any experience Aka could offer, and several of them had actually filled 

File Clerk positions for several months already, as temporary 

employees. Additionally, Aka's "track record" was not as 

directly pertinent to the File Clerk positions as those of the 

successful applicants; while Aka "dealt with" Washington 

Hospital's customers, he did so as an orderly, rather than in 

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the office or clerical context. Therefore, we affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment to Washington Hospital on these claims.

C. The Remaining Challenged Hiring Decisions

Aka also maintains that he offered sufficient evidence to 

survive summary judgment in regard to several other positions for which he applied and was rejected, after having been 

turned down for the positions discussed above. However, 

Washington Hospital correctly points out that Aka failed to 

identify any of these positions in his complaint, or to establish 

even a prima facie case in regard to these positions, and 

therefore we affirm the district court's grant of summary 

judgment to Washington Hospital with regard to these 

claims. We note, however, that although Aka cannot present 

these hiring decisions as separate grounds for relief, he may 

nevertheless introduce evidence regarding these later job 

applications in pressing those claims that survive Washington 

Hospital's summary judgment motion. See United Air Lines, 

Inc. v. Evans, 431 U.S. 553, 558 (1977) ("A discriminatory act 

which is not made the basis for a timely charge ... may 

constitute relevant background evidence in a proceeding in 

which the status of a current practice is at issue....").

D. Washington Hospital's Failure to Reassign Aka to Make 

a "Reasonable Accommodation" to Aka's Disability

Aka also alleges that the district court erred in denying his 

motion for summary judgment as to his claim that Washington Hospital had violated the ADA by failing to reassign him 

to a vacant non-strenuous position after his disability made 

him unable to continue working as an orderly.

The ADA provides that:

No covered entity shall discriminate against a qualified 

individual with a disability because of the disability of 

such individual in regard to job application procedures, 

the hiring, advancement, or discharge of employees....

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42 U.S.C. § 12112(a). The statute then defines "discrimination" to include

not making reasonable accommodations to the known 

physical or mental limitations of an otherwise qualified 

individual with a disability who is an applicant or employee, unless such covered entity can demonstrate that the 

accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the 

operation of the business of such covered entity.

Id. at § 12112(b)(5)(A). The statute's general definitions 

section provides that:

The term "reasonable accommodation" may include

(A) making existing facilities used by employees readily accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities; 

and

(B) job restructuring, part-time or modified work 

schedules, reassignment to a vacant position, acquisition 

or modification of equipment or devices, appropriate 

adjustment or modifications of examinations, training 

materials or policies, the provision of qualified readers or 

interpreters, and other similar accommodations for individuals with disabilities.

Id. at § 12111(9) (emphasis added). With regard to the 

"undue hardship" that can excuse an employer from the 

obligation to make "reasonable accommodations," the definitions section provides:

(A) In general

The term "undue hardship" means an action requiring 

significant difficulty or expense, when considered in light 

of the factors set forth in subparagraph (B).

(B) Factors to be considered

In determining whether an accommodation would impose 

an undue hardship on a covered entity, factors to be 

considered include [the nature and cost of the accommodation needed, the financial resources of the covered 

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entity, the type of operations of the covered entity, and 

other factors].

Id. at § 12111(10).

Before turning to the arguments pressed by the parties in 

regard to this claim, we address a preliminary issue which the 

parties did not address directly in their briefs. Under the 

EEOC regulations implementing the ADA, an employer 

should not offer to reassign a disabled employee to a vacant 

position as a "reasonable accommodation" to the employee's 

disability until it has first established that no form of accommodation capable of being offered without creating "undue 

hardship" could enable the disabled employee to return to the 

position he or she held before becoming disabled. See 29 

C.F.R. Pt. 1630, App. § 1630.2(o) ("In general, reassignment 

should be considered only when accommodation within the 

individual's current position would pose an undue hardship."). 

Aka does not argue that the appropriate "reasonable accommodation" under the ADA would be an "in-position" accommodation, for example some modification of the work environment or circumstances in which the functions of an orderly 

are performed that would enable him to return to this position. Instead, Aka appears to concede that no accommodation capable of being instituted without "undue hardship" 

could enable him to perform all of the "essential functions" of 

the orderly position, which include lifting heavy patients. See

J.A. at 115 ("Q[uestion:] With the restrictions that you were 

given, specifically no heavy lifting or pushing, were you able 

to perform the job of orderly? A[nswer:] No."); cf. 42 U.S.C. 

§ 12111(8) (defining "qualified individual with a disability" 

with regard to a particular position as one who, with accommodations if necessary, can perform the "essential functions" 

of the position). It also appears that Washington Hospital, 

which bears the burden of making a "reasonable effort" to 

determine which accommodation would be most appropriate 

once a disabled employee has requested an accommodation, 

29 C.F.R. Pt. 1630, App. § 1630.9, has already concurred with 

Aka's premise that the most appropriate accommodation to 

his disability is reassignment to a vacant, non-strenuous 

position. Washington Hospital seemed to manifest its agreeUSCA Case #96-7089 Document #280437 Filed: 06/20/1997 Page 29 of 54
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ment with this conclusion by suggesting to Aka that he apply 

for such positions. Thus, we think the record provides an 

acceptable explanation for the fact that the parties have 

focused on the particular accommodation of reassignment to a 

vacant position, rather than the generally preferred option of 

some form of "in-position" accommodation. However, we do 

not mean to suggest that Washington Hospital has waived the 

opportunity to look into the possibility that some "in-position" 

accommodation would be more appropriate to Aka's disability 

than reassignment to a vacant position; rather, we leave 

Washington Hospital the option of arguing, on remand, that 

some form of "in-position" accommodation, which would enable Aka to return to his job as an orderly, would be more 

appropriate than reassignment to a vacant position. If we 

are correct in our conclusion that Washington Hospital has 

already concluded that Aka cannot return to the orderly 

position without "undue hardship" resulting, then on remand 

Washington Hospital must demonstrate why the accommodation Aka has specifically requested, reassignment to a vacant 

non-strenuous position, is "unreasonable" or could not be 

imposed without "undue hardship."

Washington Hospital successfully argued before the district 

court, and now argues before this court, that it was not 

required to transfer Aka to a vacant non-strenuous position 

after his disability made it impossible for him to return to his 

orderly position, because to do so would have violated two 

provisions of the collective bargaining agreement. Paragraph 

14.19 of the collective bargaining agreement requires Washington Hospital to post bargaining unit job openings in two 

specified locations for at least five days before filling the 

openings, and Paragraph 8.1(b) sets out the general procedures for selecting among applicants for posted positions; 

this paragraph includes a requirement that Washington Hospital give employees with greater seniority a preference over 

less-senior employee applicants who are equal in ability. The 

district court relied exclusively on Washington Hospital's 

argument that the "reasonable accommodation" of reassignment to a vacant non-strenuous position would have violated 

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the collective bargaining agreement, in dismissing Aka's "reasonable accommodation" claim. See Aka, 1996 WL 435026 at 

*5-*6.

Aka now presents several arguments in support of his claim 

that the district court erred in granting summary judgment 

to Washington Hospital on his "reasonable accommodation" 

claim. First, he argues that granting him the "reasonable 

accommodation" he seeks would not conflict with the collective bargaining agreement, because the agreement contains a 

provision authorizing just such reassignments. Paragraph 

14.5 of the collective bargaining agreement ("the handicapped-transfer provision") provides that:

An employee who becomes handicapped and thereby 

unable to perform his job shall be reassigned to another 

job he is able to perform whenever, in the sole discretion 

of the Hospital, such reassignment is feasible and will not 

interfere with patient care or the orderly operation of the 

Hospital.

J.A. at 207. Thus, the relevant collective bargaining agreement itself requires the transfer of handicapped employees 

under certain conditions. Washington Hospital's first response to Aka's reliance on Paragraph 14.5 is that this 

provision creates no exception to the posting and selection 

procedures set out in Paragraphs 14.19 and 8.1(b), and thus 

every vacancy must be filled pursuant to the latter two 

paragraphs regardless of the handicapped-transfer provision. 

We reject this interpretation. Although the handicappedtransfer provision and the provisions setting out the general 

posting and selection procedures do not attempt to accommodate each other, under the most reasonable reading of the 

agreement as a whole, the provision authorizing the transfer 

of handicapped employees to vacant positions creates an 

exception to the otherwise-applicable posting and selection 

procedures. A contrary interpretation, whereby the posting 

and selection procedures would preempt the handicappedtransfer provision, would render the handicapped-transfer 

provision completely ineffective: If vacancies must be posted 

and filled in the same fashion regardless of whether an 

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employee has become eligible for a handicapped-transfer, no 

handicapped employee would ever be entitled to reassignment. All of the pertinent principles of interpretation are 

contrary to this latter understanding of the collective bargaining agreement, including the principle that courts should 

assume that the parties intended for every part of an agreement to have meaning, see FARNSWORTH ON CONTRACTS § 7.11 

(1990), the related principle that courts should give preference to interpretations that do not render any portion of the 

agreement ineffective or mere surplusage, see id., and the 

principle requiring that a more specific provision (e.g., the 

handicapped-transfer provision) be permitted to operate as an 

exception to more general provisions (e.g., the job-posting and 

seniority-preference provisions) in cases of clear conflict. See 

id; see also Conoco, Inc. v. NLRB, 91 F.3d 1523, 1526 (D.C. 

Cir. 1996) (preferring an interpretation of a provision in a 

collective bargaining agreement which "imbue[d] the provision with meaningful content").

We are not convinced by any of Washington Hospital's 

efforts to press an interpretation contrary to the clear meaning of Paragraph 14.5. Washington Hospital argues that the 

fact that it has never reassigned handicapped employees to 

vacant positions without following the job-posting provision 

shows that transferring Aka to a vacant position would violate 

the agreement. The record does not indicate why Washington Hospital has never given this provision effect in the past, 

but the hospital does not dispute that the provision remains a 

part of the agreement, and we do not agree that the provision 

should be treated as having atrophied and become void from 

disuse. Washington Hospital also makes the remarkable 

assertion that the provision does not permit reassignment of 

Aka because the Acting Director of its Office of Personnel 

Relations believes that any reassignment "would be unfeasible and would interfere with patient care or the orderly 

operation of Washington Hospital Center." J.A. at 423. But 

if we were to interpret this provision as permitting Washington Hospital unilaterally to decide that it will always use the 

discretion granted in this Paragraph to deny transfers, we 

would be permitting one party to the agreement unilaterally 

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to render a provision of the agreement ineffective. We 

decline to give Washington Hospital this power, not only 

because it would make the collective bargaining process a 

sham, but also because it violates the clear language of the 

handicapped-transfer provision, which requires an exercise of 

discretion in each individual case in which an employee 

becomes handicapped. Finally, Washington Hospital argues 

that the Arbitrator's decision rejecting Aka's and the union's 

grievances regarding the File Clerk hiring decisions was 

contrary to Aka's "reasonable accommodation" claim, and 

that we should defer to this decision. But the Arbitrator 

never even referred to the ADA, the collective bargaining 

agreement's handicapped-transfer provision, or "reasonable 

accommodation" in his opinion. See J.A. at 281-91. Thus, we 

reject Washington Hospital's argument that transferring Aka 

to a vacant position under Paragraph 14.5 would under no 

circumstances be consistent with the collective bargaining 

agreement.

The bulk of Washington Hospital's argument, however, is 

not devoted to showing that the collective bargaining agreement prohibits any transfer of a handicapped employee to a 

vacant position except pursuant to the general posting and 

selection procedures, but rather to the proposition that employers cannot be mandated to provide accommodations when 

doing so would conflict with the terms of a collective bargaining agreement. Washington Hospital cites several Rehabilitation Act cases for the proposition that the reassignment of 

handicapped employees was virtually never required under 

that Act, see Brief of Appellee Washington Hospital Center at 

41-42 (citing Mason v. Frank, 32 F.3d 315, 319-20 (8th Cir. 

1994); Shea v. Tisch, 870 F.2d 786, 789-90 (1st Cir. 1989); 

Jasany v. United States Postal Serv., 755 F.2d 1244, 1251-52 

(6th Cir. 1985); and Daubert v. United States Postal Serv.,

733 F.2d 1367, 1370 (10th Cir. 1984)), as well as a few ADA 

cases in which circuit courts declined to require employers to 

provide accommodations that would conflict with the terms of 

applicable collective bargaining agreements. See id. at 43 

(citing Eckles v. Consolidated Rail Corp., 94 F.3d 1041, 1051 

(7th Cir.), cert. denied, 117 S. Ct. 1318 (1997); Milton v. 

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Scrivner, Inc., 53 F.3d 1118, 1125 (10th Cir. 1995)).10 With 

regard to the cases construing the Rehabilitation Act, we note 

that although this Act is quite similar to the ADA in most 

respects, see supra, the two acts diverge sharply on this 

particular question, because the ADA explicitly suggests 

"reassignment to a vacant position" as a form of "reasonable 

accommodation" that may be required of employers. 42 

U.S.C. § 12111(9). The ADA cases, however, are pertinent to 

Aka's claim because even though Paragraph 14.5 provides a 

mechanism for producing the outcome (reassignment to a 

vacant position) that Aka seeks as an accommodation to his 

disability, there is still a difference between Washington 

Hospital reassigning a disabled employee pursuant to the 

ADA's mandate and Washington Hospital reassigning the 

employee pursuant to the procedures specified in the agreement. The ADA requires reassignment when it is the most 

appropriate "reasonable accommodation" available, and would 

not impose "undue hardship" on the employer; the collective 

bargaining agreement requires reassignment whenever, in 

Washington Hospital's discretion, it is "feasible" and "w[ould] 

not interfere with patient care or the orderly operation of the 

hospital." It's not clear whether adding the ADA "reasonable 

accommodation" obligation expands the set of situations in 

which reassignment is required beyond those defined in the 

collective bargaining agreement, or whether in each case in 

which the ADA would require reassignment the agreement 

would as well, but clearly there is a conflict, however minimal, 

between the agreement and the ADA.11 This conflict arises 

_______________

10 Washington Hospital also cites Carter v. Tisch, 822 F.2d 465, 

469 (4th Cir. 1987), for the proposition that a duty to accommodate 

a disabled employee under the ADA cannot defeat the provisions of 

a collective bargaining agreement. See Brief of Appellee Washington Hospital Center at 43. But that case is clearly inapposite, since 

it was decided three years before the passage of the ADA. 

11 In order to avoid any confusion, we stress that our colleague's 

mystifying assertion that we find no conflict between the agreement 

and the ADA is, quite simply, wrong. See partial dissent at 11. 

For this reason, our colleague's characterization of our discussion of 

conflicts between collective bargaining agreements and the ADA as 

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from the fact that a particular reassignment might be required by the ADA but not fall within the agreement's 

handicapped-transfer provision, for in such a case the ADA 

would clash with the seniority system instituted in Paragraph 

8.1(b) of the agreement.

Congress hoped that post-ADA collective bargaining agreements would include provisions enabling employers to offer 

accommodations to disabled employees without creating any

conflict with the agreementsprovisions along the lines of: 

"The employer may take all actions necessary to comply with 

the Americans with Disabilities Act." See H.R. REP. No. 

101-485, pt. 2, at 63 (1990), reprinted in 1990 U.S.C.C.A.N. 

303, 346; accord S. REP. No. 101-116, at 32 (1989). Such a 

provision would create an exception to all of the other components of the agreement that would by definition have the 

exact dimensions necessary to permit "reasonable accommodations" to pass through. Where, as here, the applicable 

agreement contains no such provision, there generally will be 

some conflict between the agreements and the provision of 

certain accommodations; sometimes a disabled employee may 

seek to pass the square peg of an accommodation through the 

round hole of a provision in the agreement authorizing the 

requested accommodation pursuant to certain procedures, 

and in other cases the agreement may include no provision 

permitting anything similar to the requested accommodation. 

This case falls in the former category, and thus we must 

decide what significance to accord the fact that the ADA's 

obligation to make "reasonable accommodations" here conflicts with the terms of a collective bargaining agreement.

We hold that the district court erred in resting its dismissal 

of Aka's "reasonable accommodation" claim on the conclusion 

_______________

a "dictum," id. at 11, is equally wrong. The term dictum refers to 

"[a]n expression in an opinion which is not necessary to support the 

decision reached by the court." BALLENTINE'S LAW DICTIONARY 346 

(3d ed. 1969). Because we find that just such a conflict exists in the 

case at bar, our discussion of conflicts between ADA "reasonable 

accommodations" and collective bargaining agreements, see infra, is 

necessary to our decision. 

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that any conflict between a requested accommodation and a 

collective bargaining agreement bars the disabled employee 

from claiming an entitlement to the accommodation under the 

ADA. See Aka, 1996 WL 435026, at *6. Instead, the fact 

that a requested accommodation does not fall squarely within 

the terms of the applicable collective bargaining agreement is 

relevant only insofar as it undermines the employee's claim 

that the requested accommodation is "reasonable," or bolsters 

the employer's affirmative defense that the accommodation 

could not be provided without "undue hardship."12 The 

statute, its legislative history, and the EEOC regulations 

implementing it indicate that the inquiry into whether a 

particular accommodation may be required by the ADA must 

be made in light of the specific nature of the requested 

accommodation and of the employer's business, including (but 

not limited to) the degree to which the accommodation might 

disrupt the workforce by upsetting settled expectations created by the collective bargaining agreement, or by undermining 

the operational structure instituted by the agreement. See 42 

U.S.C. § 12112 (requiring covered entities to make "reasonable accommodations" unless they can demonstrate that to do 

so would impose "undue hardship"); H.R. REP. No. 101-485, 

pt. 2, at 63 (1990), reprinted in 1990 U.S.C.C.A.N. 303, 345 

(noting that the fact that an accommodation is inconsistent 

with the terms of a collective bargaining agreement "may be 

considered as a factor" in determining whether the accommodation is "reasonable" but that it "would not be determinative 

on the issue"); accord S. REP. No. 101-116, at 32 (1989); see 

also 29 C.F.R. Pt. 1630, App. § 1630.15(d) (explaining that the 

terms of a collective bargaining agreement "may be relevant" 

to the determination of whether the provision of a particular 

_______________

12 Under this circuit's precedent in Barth, the disabled employee 

bears the burden of persuasion on the question of whether the 

requested accommodation is "reasonable." See Barth, 2 F.3d at 

1187. Should the employee succeed in demonstrating that a "reasonable accommodation" is available, the employer may claim that 

the accommodation would impose an "undue hardship" as an affirmative defense to its obligation to provide the accommodation. See 

id.

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accommodation would "be unduly disruptive to its other employees or to the functioning of its business").

We acknowledge that our approach to conflicts between a 

collective bargaining agreement and an accommodation 

sought under the ADA diverges somewhat from the analysis 

applied by three of our sister circuits, perhaps most notably 

from the Seventh Circuit's approach to a factually similar 

situation in Eckles.13 The Eckles court addressed a disabled 

employee's claim of entitlement to an accommodation that 

would have contravened the broad seniority-preference provision in the applicable collective bargaining agreement, but 

that could nevertheless have been provided pursuant to another provision in the agreement that authorized the granting 

_______________

13 See Boback v. General Motors Corp., 107 F.3d 870 (Table), 1997 

WL 3613 (Unpublished Disposition), at **5 (6th Cir. Jan. 3, 1997) 

("[T]he ADA does not require an employer to violate the contractual 

rights of other workers in an effort to accommodate a single 

employee."); Benson v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 62 F.3d 1108, 1114 

(8th Cir. 1995) ("The ADA does not require that [the employer] take 

action inconsistent with the contractual rights of other workers 

under a collective bargaining agreement."). The Eckles court also 

cited a case from the Tenth Circuit, see Eckles, 94 F.3d at 1051 

(citing Milton, 53 F.3d at 1125), and one from the Fifth Circuit, see 

id. (citing Daugherty v. City of El Paso, 56 F.3d 695, 700 (5th Cir.), 

cert. denied, 116 S. Ct. 1263 (1996)), as consistent with its holding 

that "the ADA does not require disabled individuals to be accommodated by sacrificing the collectively bargained, bona fide seniority 

rights of other employees." Id. But these other decisions do not 

clearly adopt any such per se rule. In Milton, the Tenth Circuit 

held that the reassignment requested by a disabled employee was 

"unreasonable," and supported this conclusion with, among other 

things, the observation that the reassignment would be contrary to 

the collectively-bargained seniority system. Milton, 53 F.3d at 

1125. And in Daugherty, the Fifth Circuit observed that an employer is "not required to fundamentally alter its program" or to 

"find or create a new job" for a disabled employee, Daugherty, 56 

F.3d at 700 (quoting Chiari v. City of League City, 920 F.2d 311, 

318 (5th Cir. 1991)), under the ADA provision exempting employers 

from any obligation to provide accommodations that would impose 

"undue hardship." 

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of the requested accommodation pursuant to individual agreements negotiated by representatives of the union and the 

employer. See id. at 1043-44. The Eckles court accepted the 

employer's premise that the terms of a collective bargaining 

agreement can bar the ADA from mandating an accommodation even without an individualized finding that the accommodation would impose an "undue hardship" or would be "unreasonable." See id. at 1045-46. However, the court expressly 

declined to find that all provisions in collective bargaining 

agreements are "immune from limitation by the ADA duty to 

reasonably accommodate," stressing that its holding was limited to collectively-bargained seniority rights, which had "a 

pre-existing special status in the law." Id. at 1052.

We reject the Eckles court's analysis because the plain 

language of the ADA requires employers to provide accommodations to the disabilities of qualified employees unless the 

accommodation in question would be "unreasonable" or would 

impose an "undue hardship," see 42 U.S.C. § 12112, because 

the suggested "reasonable accommodations" listed in the 

statute include several (among them the reassignment to a 

vacant position that Aka seeks) that commonly will conflict to 

some degree with the applicable collective bargaining agreements in unionized workplacesincluding the portions of 

those agreements creating "seniority rights," see id. at 

§ 12111(9); see also Eckles, 94 F.3d at 1052; Mary K. 

O'Melveny, The Americans with Disabilities Act and Collective Bargaining Agreements: Reasonable Accommodations 

or Irreconcilable Conflicts?, 82 KY. L.J. 219, 234 (1993-94), 

and because both the legislative history of the ADA and the 

relevant EEOC regulations clearly indicate that the fact that 

a particular accommodation would require some departure 

from the terms of a collective bargaining agreement should 

not in itself determine the question of whether an employer 

may be required to provide the accommodation. See supra.14

Thus, we would misconstrue the ADA's "reasonable accommo-

_______________

14 Thus, the nature of the ADA prevents the Supreme Court's 

Title VII decision in TWA v. Hardison, 432 U.S. 63 (1977) from 

being directly applicable to this case. Cf. Eckles, 94 F.3d at 1048 

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dation" requirement if we were to allow any and all "conflicts" 

between requested accommodations and the terms of collective bargaining agreements to stand as per se bars to disabled 

employees' claims of entitlement to these accommodations 

under the ADA.

We likewise think it inappropriate to draw blanket conclusions regarding whether the ADA can "trump" provisions in 

collective bargaining agreements, Eckles, 94 F.3d at 1046 n.8, 

1047, 1048, or whether the ADA can require the "sacrifice[ ]" 

of "rights" created in other employees by these agreements, 

id. at 1045after all, in some cases the degree of infringement imposed by a "reasonable accommodation" to one employee's disability on a "right" held by other employees under 

the collective bargaining agreement may be extremely slight, 

and may impose virtually no "hardship" at all. If one nondisabled employee entitled to a vacant position under the 

seniority system in the collective bargaining agreement must 

wait an extra day before receiving an identical assignment 

because the earlier vacancy was filled by a disabled employee 

pursuant to the ADA, would this entail the "sacrifice" of 

"rights" created in other employees under the agreement? 

Would this constitute the "trumping" of the agreement's 

seniority system by the ADA? We think that the ADA's 

_______________

(discussing Hardison). Although in Hardison the Court held that 

the duty to provide "reasonable accommodations" imposed under an 

EEOC regulation implementing Title VII did not require an employer "to take steps inconsistent with the otherwise valid [collective bargaining agreement]" Hardison, 432 U.S. at 79, it was careful 

to note that it reached this conclusion in the absence of any "clear 

and express indication from Congress" explaining how courts should 

address such inconsistencies. Id. The ADA and its legislative 

history include the "clear and express indications" that Title VII 

lacked, including the enumeration of "reassignment to a vacant 

position" in the statutory provision regarding "reasonable accommodations," and the statements in reports from both houses of Congress stressing that conflicts between requested accommodations 

and provisions of collective bargaining agreements (including seniority systems) are not "determinative" in the inquiry into whether 

the employer must provide the accommodations. See supra.

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"reasonable accommodation" provisions require us to bear in 

mind that conflicts between accommodations to disabled employees and the terms of applicable collective bargaining 

agreements exist on a continuum, rather than functioning like 

an "on/off" switch. Cf. id. at 1047 ("What would be lost to 

other employees [if the disabled employee were given the 

requested accommodation], particularly more senior employees, would be some of the value of their seniority with the 

company...."). In the case at bar, for example, the applicable collective bargaining agreement carves out an exception 

to the "seniority system" authorizing the employer to fill 

vacancies with reassigned disabled employees (rather than 

posting notices of the vacancies, taking applications, and 

exercising the normal seniority preference) whenever the 

employer's discretion indicates that doing so would be "feasible" and "w[ould] not interfere with patient care or the 

orderly operation of the hospital." This built-in exception to 

the seniority system is quite broad in scope, and appears to 

be quite similar to the ADA in determining when reassignment may be required. Thus, although there is a conflict 

between the agreement and the "reasonable accommodation" 

Aka seeks, the conflict is relatively minor, and therefore it 

appears to present little difficulty for Aka's claim that the 

accommodation is "reasonable"; by the same token, the conflict appears to give Washington Hospital little purchase for 

any affirmative defense that the reassignment would impose 

an "undue hardship." Cf. Buckingham v. United States, 998 

F.2d 735, 741-42 (9th Cir. 1993) (holding that a job transfer 

provided as a "reasonable accommodation" under the Rehabilitation Act did not conflict with a collective bargaining agreement when the agreement included a provision authorizing 

transfers and requiring a seniority preference in transfers 

"[e]xcept in the most unusual of circumstances"). To put it in 

terms of the infringement on the "seniority rights" of other 

employees, the other employees' seniority rights were already 

limited by the handicapped-transfer provision, which prevented them from bidding for (and asserting their seniority 

preference in regard to) vacancies required to be given to 

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reassigned handicapped employees under Paragraph 14.5; 

with the prospect of reassignments occurring also under the 

ADA, this limit on the other employees' seniority rights may 

extend to at most a few more reassignments, and may remain 

unchanged.

The record indicates, therefore, that a triable issue of fact 

exists as to whether Washington Hospital has satisfied its 

obligation to offer Aka the "reasonable accommodation" to his 

disability required under the ADA. Aka has demonstrated 

that one form of "reasonable accommodation" specifically 

enumerated in the ADA is available, by showing that he is a 

"qualified individual with a disability" with regard to nonstrenuous positions such as File Clerk and Central Pharmacy 

Technician, 42 U.S.C. § 12112(a), and the record indicates 

that Washington Hospital has not even considered reassigning him to such a position, see id. at §§ 12112(b)(5)(A), 

12111(9), nor has it offered Aka any other "reasonable accommodation," as it is required to do by the ADA. Because the 

district court dismissed this claim on what it improperly 

considered a threshold issuethe conflict between the ADA 

obligation to make "reasonable accommodations" and the 

seniority system instituted in the collective bargaining agreementthe parties have not yet properly framed and argued 

the questions of whether the accommodation Aka seeks is 

"reasonable" and whether the accommodation would impose 

an "undue hardship" on Washington Hospital, and therefore 

we deny Aka's motion for summary judgment in his favor on 

this claim, and we remand the claim for trial on the merits.

III. CONCLUSION

Aka presented sufficient evidence to discredit Washington 

Hospital's proffered nondiscriminatory reasons for choosing 

Jaime Valenzuela over him for the position of Central Pharmacy Technician in the mind of a reasonable factfinder, and 

presented sufficient evidence to create genuine issues of 

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quired under the ADA to reassign him to a vacant nonstrenuous position as a "reasonable accommodation" of his 

disability, but summary judgment for Aka on this claim is 

inappropriate because Aka has not shown that a reasonable 

factfinder must resolve these issues in his favor; in all other 

respects, the district court's grant of summary judgment to 

Washington Hospital was appropriate. Accordingly, we reverse the district court's grant of summary judgment to 

Washington Hospital as it affects Aka's claims related to the 

Central Pharmacy Technician position and his "reasonable 

accommodation" claim, we deny Aka's request for summary 

judgment on the latter claim, and we remand the case for 

trial on the merits of the remanded claims.

So ordered.

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KAREN LECRAFT HENDERSON, Circuit Judge, concurring in part 

and dissenting in part:

We all agree that Washington Hospital Center (Washington 

Hospital) is entitled to summary judgment on Aka's claims 

regarding the file clerk positions and, accordingly, I concur in 

our affirmance on those claims. I strongly disagree, however, 

with the majority's conclusion that Aka produced sufficient 

evidence to survive summary judgment with respect to the 

central pharmacy technician position. I believe remand for a 

trial on the question whether Washington Hospital rejected 

Aka for any of the available positions in violation of Title VII, 

the ADA or the ADEA is wrong and, accordingly, I dissent 

from the reversal of the grant of summary judgment on those 

claims. With respect to Aka's reasonable accommodation 

claim, I agree with the majority that a remand is necessary. 

I write separately on this issue, however, because the majority reaches issues we need not reach.

I.

The majority takes a spectacular wrong turn in its opinion. 

While purporting to rely on the United States Supreme 

Court's decision in St. Mary's Honor Center v. Hicks, 509 

U.S. 502 (1993), the majority in fact takes an approach to the 

availability of summary judgment in discrimination cases not 

only in conflict with both the language and the spirit of that 

decision but also with circuit precedent, which itself had 

initially seemed to veer from Hicks in Barbour v. Merrill, 48 

F.3d 1270, 1281 (D.C. Cir. 1995), cert. granted in part, 116 

S. Ct. 805 (1996), cert. dismissed, 116 S. Ct. 1037 (1996) 

(voluntary settlement by parties).

My disagreement with the majority on Aka's claims regarding the central pharmacy technician position centers on the 

following question: Once a defendant has proffered legitimate 

non-discriminatory reasons under the second step of the 

McDonnell Douglas framework, what evidence must a plaintiff produce to survive summary judgment? The majority 

takes the position that the plaintiff automatically survives 

summary judgment by presenting evidence that questions the 

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employer's proffered reasons. Maj. Op. at 25 ("Because Aka 

presented sufficient evidence to discredit Washington Hospital's proffered reasons for passing him over for the job of 

Central Pharmacy Technician ..., we reverse the district 

court's grant of summary judgment ....") (footnote omitted). 

Its position, however, is inconsistent with the Supreme 

Court's decision in St. Mary's Honor Center v. Hicks:

We have no authority to impose liability upon the employer for alleged discriminatory employment practices 

unless an appropriate factfinder determines, according to 

proper procedures, that the employer has unlawfully 

discriminated. We may, according to traditional practice, establish certain modes and orders of proof.... 

But nothing in law would permit us to substitute for the 

required finding that the employer's action was the product of unlawful discrimination, the much different (and 

much lesser) finding that the employer's explanation of 

its action was not believable.

509 U.S. at 514-15 (emphasis in original). Thus under Hicks

the question we ask is not whether a reasonable factfinder 

could disbelieve Washington Hospital's proffered reasons but 

whether a reasonable factfinder could believe that Washington Hospital's real reasons were discriminatory. Although 

the rejection of proffered reasons is relevant, it is not necessarily determinative of the ultimate and, in the words of the 

Supreme Court, "much different" finding of discrimination.

Consider the case in which an employer's proffered nondiscriminatory reason is a written evaluation stating that the 

plaintiff lacked sufficient qualifications for a job. The plaintiff might discredit the evidence with his own evidence that 

the employer lied on the evaluation. Or the plaintiff might 

discredit the employer's reason by offering evidence that he 

did possess the necessary qualifications. The first method is, 

according to the Supreme Court, more probative of discrimination than the second. See Hicks, 509 U.S. at 511 (suggesting factfinder could more readily infer discrimination from 

disbelief of proffered reasons where disbelief is accompanied 

by suspicion of mendacity). Moreover, there may be evidence 

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that bears on discrimination besides the defendant's stated 

reasons and the plaintiff's attack on their authenticity. For 

example, an outstanding track record in employment relations 

with members of the protected class or the fact that the 

challenged employment decision was made by a member of 

the protected class may weigh against a finding of discriminationeven if the employer's proffered reasons are discredited. See id. at 513-14.

All of this manifests that the connection between pretext 

and discrimination is intensely fact bound.1 Our task on 

summary judgment is to determine whether a reasonable 

factfinder could find discrimination given the plaintiff's attack 

on the employer's stated reasons and in light of any other 

facts in the record relevant to discrimination (such as employer mendacity, which would be indicative of discrimination, or 

a nondiscriminatory employment track record, which would 

not). One searches the majority opinion in vain, however, for 

any analysis of the connection between Aka's attack on Washington Hospital's proffered reasons and his evidence of "unlawful discrimination." To the contrary, the majority concludes Aka survives summary judgment simply because Aka's 

evidence, if believed, casts doubt on Washington Hospital's 

proffered reasons. Maj. Op. at 20-22. The majority cannot, 

however, through its proof scheme authorize the plaintiff to 

bypass proving an essential element of his claim in violation 

of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, specifically Rule 56, 

as interpreted by the Supreme Court in an unbroken line of 

cases. "[T]he plain language of Rule 56(c) mandates the 

entry of summary judgment ... against a party who fails to 

make a showing sufficient to establish the existence of an 

_______________

1 This is not to say that my disagreement with the majority is 

first and foremost one of fact. Although I differ with the majority 

on the relevance of certain facts, see infra at 6-8, that difference 

lies on the periphery of this dissent. At the core, I dissent because 

the majority, in failing to recognize the difference between pretext 

and discrimination, adopts an erroneous rule of law whereby a 

plaintiff automatically survives summary judgment on the question 

of discrimination by presenting evidence on the different question of 

pretext. 

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element essential to that party's case, and on which that party 

will bear the burden of proof at trial." Celotex Corp. v. 

Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322 (1986).

The statement in Hicks, relied upon by the majority, that 

"[t]he factfinder's disbelief of the reasons put forward by the 

defendant ... may, together with the elements of the prima 

facie case, suffice to show intentional discrimination," 509 

U.S. at 511, supports the majority's approach only if we read 

it to mean that the factfinder may in every case find discrimination on the basis of a prima facie case and evidence of 

pretext. But such a reading is at odds with the plain 

meaning of Hicks, which is that there is a difference between 

pretext and discrimination. I read the Hicks statement upon 

which the majority relies to mean that in some but not all

cases the prima facie case plus pretext suffices to make a 

triable issue of discrimination and therefore precludes summary judgment for the defendant. Furthermore, this is the 

reading I thought our court had settled on in Barbour v. 

Merrill, 48 F.3d at 1281 ("in some cases the combination will 

be adequate to sustain a finding of discrimination, in others 

not") (statement of Williams, J., concurring in denial of 

rehearing en banc). See also Rhodes v. Guiberson Oil Tools,

75 F.3d 989, 994 (5th Cir. 1996) (en banc) ("[I]f the evidence 

put forth by the plaintiff to establish the prima facie case and 

to rebut the employer's reasons is not substantial, a jury 

cannot reasonably infer discriminatory intent.")2; LeBlanc v. 

Great American Ins. Co., 6 F.3d 836, 843 (1st Cir. 1993), cert. 

_______________

2 The majority incorrectly states that the Fifth Circuit's interpretation of Hicks in Rhodes is dicta. Maj. Op. at 13. In Rhodes the 

Fifth Circuit reviewed the district court's rejection of the defendant's post-verdict motion for judgment as a matter of law in an 

ADEA case. The court first announced the applicable legal standardthat the plaintiff cannot survive the motion merely by discrediting the defendant's proffered reasons but must also produce 

sufficient evidence to create a jury question on the issue of discrimination. See 75 F.3d at 994-995. The court then applied that legal 

standard in affirming the district court. See id. at 996 (concluding 

plaintiff's evidence entitled jury to find both pretext and discrimination). 

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denied, 511 U.S. 1018 (1994)3; Deborah C. Malamud, The 

Last Minuet: Disparate Treatment After Hicks, 93 Mich. L. 

Rev. 2229, 2307-11 (1995) (where plaintiff makes prima facie

case and shows pretext, defendant will be entitled to summary judgment in some cases, plaintiff will be entitled to 

summary judgment in some and triable issues of fact will 

arise in others).

In Barbour, 48 F.3d at 1277, and in Kolstad v. American 

Dental Ass'n, 108 F.3d 1431, 1437 (D.C. Cir.), reh'g in part 

granted on other grounds, (May 28, 1997) (Nos. 96-7030, 

96-7047), the court did what the majority fails to do here

adequately explain why a reasonable factfinder could infer 

discrimination on the basis of the prima facie case and 

pretext even if the evidence was "thin to the point of virtual 

_______________

3 The majority claims that LeBlanc provides "no support" for my 

position. Maj. Op. at 13 n.6. To the contrary, LeBlanc (an ADEA 

case) takes precisely the position I maintain here, declaring:

In the context of a summary judgment proceeding, Hicks

requires that, once the employer has advanced a legitimate, 

nondiscriminatory basis for its adverse employment decision, 

the plaintiff, before becoming entitled to bring the case before 

the trier of fact, must show evidence sufficient for the factfinder reasonably to conclude that the employer's decision to 

discharge him or her was wrongfully based on age.

6 F.3d at 843. Thus mere rejection of the employer's proffered 

reasons, according to LeBlanc, is not enough for the plaintiff to 

survive summary judgment. Nor does the fact that the court in 

LeBlanc considered the discrediting of the employer's reasons as 

circumstantial evidence of discriminatory animus "conflict[ ] 

sharply," Maj. Op. at 14 n.6, with anything that I say. Proof that 

an employer's proffered reasons are not credible can be circumstantial evidence of discrimination. See Hicks, 509 U.S. at 517 

("proving the employer's reasons false becomes part of (and often 

considerably assists) the greater enterprise of proving that the 

real reason was intentional discrimination"). But discredited 

reasons do not in every case constitute circumstantial evidence 

sufficient to survive summary judgment on "the ultimate question 

of discrimination vel non." United States Postal Serv. Bd. of 

Governors v. Aikens, 460 U.S. 711, 714 (1983). 

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invisibility." Barbour, 48 F.3d at 1281 (statement of 

Williams, J., concurring in denial of rehearing en banc). Our 

statement in Barbour, reviewing a post-verdict motion for 

judgment as a matter of law, that the court "need not 

speculate about the jury's reasoning," 48 F.3d at 1277, which 

we repeated in Kolstad, 108 F.3d at 1437, requires, I believe, 

explanation. Of course the court does not speculate in the 

sense of determining how a particular jury reached its conclusion on discrimination. But the court must "speculate" to the 

extent that it always does when ruling on summary judgment 

or judgment as a matter of law. That is, we must ask 

whether a reasonable factfinder could, given the facts of the 

case, find for the plaintiff on "the ultimate question: whether 

plaintiff has proven 'that the defendant intentionally discriminated.' " Hicks, 509 U.S. at 511 (quoting Texas Dep't of 

Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 253 (1981)). 

The majority, by totally ignoring the ultimate question, departs from Hicks. It also departs from Barbour, in an 

alarming leap from the case-by-case analysis applied there to 

an automatic preclusion of summary judgment here.

Here Aka's attempt to discredit Washington Hospital's 

proffered reasons was not sufficiently probative of discrimination for Aka to survive summary judgment. Washington 

Hospital claims that it hired Jaime Valenzuela over Aka for 

the pharmacy position because Valenzuela had more relevant 

experience and demonstrated greater enthusiasm during his 

interview. The majority points to three factors to impugn 

Washington Hospital's reasons: Aka had more education, Aka 

had more experience in pharmacy services and Aka also 

exhibited enthusiasm during his interview.

The majority's discussion of Aka's and Valenzuela's comparative education is irrelevant on this record. While it is 

undisputed that Aka had a master's degree and Valenzuela 

had only a high school degree, Aka's advanced education was 

not a factor that bolstered his application for the position they 

both sought. In its "Position Specification" forms Washington Hospital lists educational prerequisites in the section 

entitled "Qualifications." For example, the Qualifications section for the position of orderly states that the applicant must 

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have a high school diploma or the equivalent. JA 324. By 

contrast, the official job description for the central pharmacy 

technician position lists no educational prerequisite. JA 332. 

Thus it appears that an individual could fill the pharmacy 

position without even completing high school. Plainly, neither a college nor master's degree is required. Indeed, Aka's 

"interview summary report" completed by Ann Breakenridge, 

the official responsible for filling the pharmacy position, indicates that Aka's education made him overqualified for the 

job. JA 230 ("Mr. Aka's MBPA degree could be best utilized 

in other areas of the hospital."). Because Aka's superior 

education did notaccording to undisputed criteriamake 

him a more desirable candidate for the pharmacy position, it 

does not cast doubt on Washington Hospital's proffered reasons for hiring Valenzuela.

As to Aka's pharmacy experience, the majority states that 

during his twenty years as an orderly, "Aka had regularly 

picked up medicine from the pharmacy, stocked medication in 

the nurses' work area, and prepared orders for medications[,] 

... accumulated extensive knowledge of the pharmacy's 

forms [and] knew how most of the medications were used in 

the treatment of patients[.]" Maj. Op. at 20-21. As discussed supra, under Hicks we ask whether a reasonable 

factfinder could find discrimination and not simply whether a 

reasonable factfinder could disbelieve Washington Hospital's 

proffered reasons. So the question is not whether Aka in 

fact possessed more relevant experience but whether Washington Hospital's selection of Valenzuela, in light of their 

relative qualifications, resulted from discrimination. To answer the latter question we assess not the qualifications Aka 

actually possessed (on summary judgment we assume he had 

all of the qualifications stated in his affidavit) but what 

qualifications were known, or should have been known, by 

Washington Hospital. Aka could even have been a licensed 

pharmacist but if Washington Hospital were unaware of his 

credential, its selection of Valenzuela would not suggest discrimination.

Focussing on those qualifications of Aka known to Washington Hospital, we get a different picture from that painted 

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cian position recites none of the pharmacy experience described in his affidavit. JA 228.4 By contrast Valenzuela's 

application indicates that he had actually worked in a pharmacy for two months and had experience in "pricing, stocking, 

[and] filling up cassettes." JA 226. When asked at oral 

argument whether Aka revealed his pharmacy experience 

either on his application or during his interview, Aka's counsel was unable to point to any record evidence that Aka had 

divulged the information. Instead, Aka's counsel argued that 

Breakenridge would have known about Aka's experience because, in her position, she would have seen orderlies performing pharmacy tasks. There is, however, nothing in the record 

to support Aka's claim that Breakenridge would have obtained knowledge of Aka's pharmacy experience listed in his 

affidavit. The record does include a Position Specification for 

the orderly position but the only duty related to pharmacy 

services is the delivery of items, including "medical materials," to and from nursing units. JA 323. This description 

matches Breakenridge's description of Aka's relevant experience. In Aka's interview summary report she indicates that 

Aka had experience with the "the drug delivery aspect of the 

job" but notes that the delivery aspect is "a minor part of the 

technician responsibilities." JA 229. In short, Aka produced 

insufficient evidence, if any, on the issue of his pharmacy 

experience to raise an inference that Washington Hospital's 

conclusion regarding Valenzuela's greater experience resulted 

from discrimination.

The majority's third factor is Washington Hospital's statement that Valenzuela was a more enthusiastic applicant than 

Aka. Aka attempts to discredit this reason by claiming that 

he also demonstrated enthusiasm. On summary judgment we 

accept Aka's contention that he was enthusiastic during his 

interview. Even accepting this, however, we cannot discredit 

that Valenzuela was an enthusiastic applicant also. Were the 

_______________

4 According to the record, Aka's application does not include a 

portion requesting information on experience. Cf. JA 226 (application of Valenzuela). Whether Aka did not fill out that portion of the 

application or whether he decided not to make it part of the record 

(here or before the district court) is impossible to tell. 

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factfinder to accept that Aka was enthusiastic, this would not 

suffice to conclude that Washington Hospital's claim that 

Valenzuela was more enthusiastic masked a discriminatory 

reason. As the majority points out, subjective criteria such 

as relative enthusiasm must be viewed with caution. Maj. 

Op. at 22. Otherwise, it would be easy for an employer to 

conceal discriminatory reasons behind subjective assessments 

which the plaintiff would have little ability, owing to their 

subjectivity, to discredit. Cf. Robbins v. White-Wilson Med. 

Clinic, Inc., 660 F.2d 1064, 1067 (5th Cir.1981) ("potential for 

discrimination [is] inherent in a subjective selection process 

involving subjective job criteria"), vacated on other grounds,

456 U.S. 969 (1982). That is, an employer with no 

nondiscriminatory reasons could hide behind an unassailable 

subjective assessment of an individual. Here, however, the 

employer has not relied solely on subjective reasons. To the 

contrary, Washington Hospital offered evidence of Valenzuela's greater work experience and Aka produced nothing to 

discredit the evidence in a way that would support an inference of discrimination.5

If an employer supports an employment decision on the basis of an unrebutted objective factor 

_______________

5 By contrast, in the cases cited by the majority to support its 

conclusion that subjective reasons should be subjected to close 

scrutiny, the employer's non-subjective reasons were rebutted. For 

example, in Farber v. Massillon Board of Education, 917 F.2d 1391, 

1399 (6th Cir. 1990), the employer's objective reason was that the 

individual selected for the position "met the minimum established 

qualifications." The record indicated, however, that the individual 

did not meet the qualifications. Id. Similarly, in Lilly v. HarrisTeeter Supermarket, 842 F.2d 1496, 1506 (4th Cir. 1988), the 

employer's objective reason was that the plaintiffs were less qualified. The court rejected this reason as pretextual based on the 

district court's credibility assessments of the defense witnesses. Id. 

The majority also cites Fishbach v. District of Columbia Department of Corrections, 86 F.3d 1180 (D.C. Cir. 1996), but that case 

sheds no light on the issue because there we found that the 

employer did not rely on a subjective reason at all. See id. at 1184 

("[Plaintiff] fails, however, to point to any finding by the district 

court or to any evidence suggesting that the Department relied 

upon any highly subjective criterion."). 

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and adds a subjective reason, this should not preclude it from 

summary judgment. Cf. Lex K. Larson, 2 Employment 

Discrimination § 29.06 (2d ed. 1996) ("When the type of job 

lends itself to objective evaluation but totally subjective procedures are used, these facts may well go a long way to 

support an inference of discriminatory motive.") (emphasis 

added).

Because Aka failed to adduce any evidence on the essential 

element of discrimination, I would affirm the district court's 

grant of summary judgment to Washington Hospital on his 

Title VII, ADA and ADEA hiring claims.6 Accordingly, I 

dissent from the majority's holding on these claims.

II.

I agree with the majority that the case should be remanded 

to the district court on the reasonable accommodation issue of 

the ADA claim. As the majority states, "In general, reassignment should be considered only when accommodation 

within the individual's current position would pose an undue 

hardship." Maj. Op. at 29 (quoting 29 C.F.R. Pt. 1630, App. 

§ 1630.2(o)). Because the district court failed to address the 

possibility of accommodating Aka within his orderly position 

and because it is impossible to conclude from the record 

whether such an accommodation would be reasonable or 

would not result in undue hardship, summary judgment for 

Washington Hospital was premature. In the event Aka's 

_______________

6 Regarding Aka's ADA and ADEA claims he presented insufficient evidence as a matter of law that his age or disability played 

any role in Washington Hospital's hiring decisions. As great a 

distance as exists between Aka's evidence and an inference of 

discrimination in his ADA and ADEA claims, other factors make 

the distance even greater in his Title VII claims based on race and 

national origin. The record manifests Aka's successful twenty-year 

employment relationship with Washington Hospital. To note the 

obvious, his race and national origin did not change during that 

time. To infer that Washington Hospital would begin discriminating on the basis of his race and national origin after twenty years of 

non-discrimination strains credulity. 

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orderly position cannot be modified such that he can return to 

it, the district court must resolve the reassignment question.

In determining whether Aka's reassignment to any vacant 

position constitutes a reasonable accommodation under the 

ADA, the majority first concludes there is no conflict between 

reassignment under the ADA, on the one hand, and the 

posting procedures (section 14.19) and selection procedures 

(section 8.1(b)) established in the collective bargaining agreement, on the other, because section 14.5 of the collective 

bargaining agreement, which specifically provides for reassignment of handicapped workers, "creates an exception to 

the otherwise-applicable posting and selection procedures." 

Maj. Op. at 31. That is, in the event the ADA requires 

reassignment other employees would have no grievance that 

their posting and selection rights (secured by the collective 

bargaining agreement) had been violated. To this point I am 

foursquare with my colleagues.

It seems, however, that the majority is intent on addressing 

the issue of how to balance rights where there is a conflict 

between the ADA and a collective bargaining agreement. To 

that end, the majority concludes that "there is a conflict, 

however minimal," Maj. Op. at 34, between the collective 

bargaining agreement's reassignment provision (section 14.5) 

and the ADA's reassignment because the ADA might require 

"a few more reassignments," Maj. Op. at 40-41, than section 

14.5 of the collective bargaining agreement. Even if there 

were a slight inconsistency, however, it would not matter 

here. Indeed, the majority makes the very point. Maj. Op. 

at 41 (any inconsistency "appears to present very little difficulty for Aka's claim that the accommodation is 'reasonable' " 

and "appears to give Washington Hospital very little purchase for any affirmative defense that the reassignment 

would impose an 'undue hardship.' "). I therefore take the 

majority's entire discussion of the balancing of rights under 

the ADA and a collective bargaining agreement to be dictum 

and, like all dictum, carrying the same baggageunintended 

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consequences in unknown circumstances.7 For this reason, I 

disassociate myself from the unfortunate conflicts dictum.

* * *

I respectfully dissent from the majority's reversal of summary judgment on the central pharmacy technician issue and 

otherwise concur in the judgment.

_______________

7 For example, the majority queries, "If one non-disabled employee entitled to a vacant position under the seniority system in the 

collective bargaining agreement must wait an extra day before 

receiving an identical assignment because the earlier vacancy was 

filled by a disabled employee pursuant to the ADA, would this entail 

the 'sacrifice' of 'rights' created in other employees under the 

agreement?" Maj. Op. at 39. This suggests that in assessing the 

reasonableness of accommodating a handicapped employee, the 

court must examine what impact reassignment of the handicapped 

employee would have on other individual employees. At this point 

the record contains no evidence regarding the effect Aka's reassignment might have on individual employees but the majority states 

that there is "little difficulty" with Aka's claim that reassignment is 

reasonable because the ADA requirements could result in, at most, 

a few more handicapped reassignments than would the collective 

bargaining agreement. Maj. Op. at 40-41. But what if an "extra" 

reassignment permanently excludes another employee from a position he merits and would have otherwise received? According to 

the majority, is the impact on the non-handicapped employee relevant to reasonableness (or perhaps even determinative)? The 

majority's dictumnot surprisinglydoes not provide the answer. 

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