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Parties Involved:
Tonicia Boston
Appellant
Memorial Medical Center
Appellee

Document Text:

*

We GRANT the plaintiff‐appellant’s unopposed motion to waive oral argument.

The appeal is submitted on the briefs and the record.  See FED. R. APP. P. 34(f).

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted March 17, 2010*

Decided April 7, 2010

Before

RICHARD A. POSNER, Circuit Judge

DANIEL A. MANION, Circuit Judge

DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge

No. 09‐3396

TONICIA BOSTON,

Plaintiff‐Appellant,

v.

MEMORIAL MEDICAL CENTER,

Defendant‐Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District

Court for the Central District of Illinois.

No. 06‐3166

Jeanne E. Scott,

Judge.

O R D E R

Tonicia Boston sued Memorial Medical Center under the Americans with Disabilities

Act, claiming that her former employer failed to accommodate her disability.  See 42 U.S.C.

§§ 12112(a), (b)(5)(A).  The district court concluded that Boston was not disabled under the

ADA and granted summary judgment against her; in the alternative, the district court

reasoned, Boston had not shown that Memorial failed to accommodate her disability.  Boston

appeals, but we affirm the judgment.  Although we think that Boston presented sufficient

evidence to survive summary judgment on the question whether she is disabled under the

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with

Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

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No. 09‐3396 Page 2

ADA, we agree with the district court that she did not show that Memorial refused to

accommodate her disability.

Boston was working forMemorial as a registered nurse when she suffered an on‐the‐job

injury that resulted in a chronic back condition.  As a result, she testified at her deposition, she

could bathe by herself only “occasionally.”  Keeping in mind that we are reviewing a grant of

summary judgment, we construe the somewhat ambiguous deposition testimony in the light

reasonably most favorable to Boston as the non‐moving party.  At least a few times per week

she required the assistance of hermother or youngdaughter, she explained, and “occasionally”

she would not be able to bathe at all.  Likewise, Boston said, she was able to prepare her own

meals only once or twice a week and otherwise relied on her mother.  And only rarely was she

able to clean her house, Boston complained.  But, she admitted, she could perform some daily

chores without any assistance at all, including dressing herself, driving to work, and walking

from the parking lot to her office.

Memorial concludedthat a registered nurse’sduties were too physicallydemanding for

someone with Boston’s condition and granted her request to work as a clinical case manager

instead.  In January 2005, Boston began to train for her new position, which required a lot of

sitting.    The constant sitting aggravated her condition, so she asked Julie Meyers, her

supervisor, if she could take occasional breaks.  Meyers apparently did not grant Boston’s

request.  In March Boston asked Meyers if she could work fewer hours during an upcoming

shift because her back was acting up.  Meyers told Boston that, unless she was sick, she needed

to work the hours she was scheduled.

Memorialissueda written warning regardingBoston’sperformance the following week.

The warning identified four areas of concern—Boston took too many breaks, called in sick

excessively, communicated uncivilly with other employees, and often did not follow proper

procedures.   In response to Memorial’s accusation that she took too many breaks, Boston

submitted notes from two doctors explaining that her chronic back condition required an

accommodation.  One doctor advised that, once every hour or two, Boston should stand and

move around for about five minutes; the other doctor advised that Boston should avoid sitting

for more than one to two hours at a time.  A Memorial employee wrote “OK” on each note, and

Memorial did not discipline Boston again.  Indeed, Boston testified at her deposition that she

made “a good effort” to comply with her doctors’ instructions.  A few weeks later, Meyers told

Boston that she could begin working eight‐hour shifts instead of twelve‐hour shifts.  However,

after submittingherdoctors’notes,Boston’s attendanceplummeted—she calledinsick fourteen

times and worked only twelve shifts before resigning at the beginning of June.

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No. 09‐3396 Page 3

Boston sued, alleging that Memorial ran afoul of the ADA by failing to accommodate

her disability.    See 42 U.S.C. §§ 12112(a), (b)(5)(A).    The district court granted summary

judgment for Memorial, concluding that Boston was not disabled under the ADA because her

physical impairment did not substantially limit a major life activity.  See id. § 12102(1)(A).

Boston had argued that she was substantially limited in the major life activities of caring for

herself and performing manual tasks.    See 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(i), (j).   But the district court

thought that Boston’s case was indistinguishable from Squibb v. Memorial Medical Center, 497

F.3d775, 784 (7th Cir. 2007), which heldthat a plaintiff who could only occasionally cook, clean,

and shop for groceries—but could drive, bathe, brush her teeth, and dress herself—was not

substantially limited in the major life activity of caring for herself.  The district court reasoned

in the alternative that, even if Boston were disabled, she had not shown that Memorial failed

to accommodate her disability.

Boston argues on appeal that she is disabled under the ADA; Squibb is distinguishable,

she says, because, unlike the plaintiff in that case, she is only occasionally capable of bathing

herself.  We think she has presented sufficient evidence that she is disabled at least to survive

a motion for summary judgment.  The Supreme Court has identified bathing in particular as

an activity that is “of central importance to people’s daily lives” and that a court must consider

when assessing whether a plaintiff is disabled underthe ADA.  See Toyota Motor Mfg., Ky., Inc.

v. Williams, 534 U.S. 184, 202 (2002).  In Squibb we examined the daily tasks that the plaintiff

could perform in light of the daily tasks she could not perform; our evaluation convinced us

that, given what she could do, she was not severely restricted in the majorlife activity of caring

for herself.  497 F.3d at 784.  But in view of modern norms in American culture, the balance

changes significantly when an employee is not able to bathe on her own but needs help or must

go without.  The relevantdeposition testimony is somewhat ambiguous, but as thenon‐moving

party, Boston is entitled to the benefit of reasonable doubts.  Given the individualized inquiry

that the ADA requires, see EEOC v. Lee’s Log Cabin, Inc., 546 F.3d 438, 442 (7th Cir. 2008),

Memorial was not entitled to summary judgment on the ground thatBoston was not a qualified

individual with a disability.

But Boston’s claim still fails because she has not shown that Memorial failed to

accommodate her.  Memorial first accommodated her back condition by offering her a new job

that was not as physically demanding as her old job.  See Mays v. Principi, 301 F.3d 866, 871, 872

(7th Cir. 2002).  When even the less‐demanding duties of her new position caused her condition

to act up, Memorial responded to Boston’s request for an additional accommodation by

permitting herto take more frequent breaks.  Contrary to Boston’s assertions in her brief, there

is no evidence in the record that Memorial refused to permit these additional breaks once it

understood the medical necessity or that Boston thought she would jeopardize her job by

taking the breaks and so suffered in silence instead.   In fact Boston acknowledged in her

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deposition testimony that she made “a good effort” to take more frequent breaks at work and

was not disciplined by Memorial after she gave Meyers a copy of her doctors’ orders.

Boston argues that Memorial did not engage her in the “interactive process”

contemplated by 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(o)(3) to “identify the precise limitations resulting from the

disability and potential reasonable accommodations that could overcome those limitations.”

But even if Boston is correct, Memorial’s failure does not, by itself, entitle her to relief.  See

Ozlowski v. Henderson, 237 F.3d 837, 840 (7th Cir. 2001).  She must also show the existence of a

reasonable accommodation that, because there was no interactive process, she did not obtain.

See Mays, 301 F.3d at 870; Ozlowski, 237 F.3d at 840.    The only accommodation she has

identified, however, is taking more frequent breaks.  The undisputed evidence in the record

shows that Memorial permitted these breaks, and Boston nevertheless resigned after a few

more weeks of work.  If Memorial erred in some way in handling Boston’s request for an

accommodation, and we do not believe that it did, any such error was harmless.  See Mays, 301

F.3d at 871.

AFFIRMED.

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