Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-06-04038/USCOURTS-ca8-06-04038-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
John Q. Hammons Hotels
Appellee
Zuhdija Napreljac
Appellant

Document Text:

1

The HONORABLE JAMES R. GRITZNER, United States District Judge for

the Southern District of Iowa.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 06-4038

___________

Zuhdija Napreljac, *

*

Plaintiff - Appellant, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the

* Southern District of Iowa.

John Q. Hammons Hotels, Inc., *

*

Defendant - Appellee. *

___________

Submitted: June 15, 2007

Filed: October 10, 2007

___________

Before LOKEN, Chief Judge, ARNOLD and COLLOTON, Circuit Judges.

___________

LOKEN, Chief Judge.

Zhudija Napreljac sued his former employer, John Q. Hammons Hotels, Inc.

(Hammons), alleging that he was wrongfully terminated as a hotel maintenance

engineer for falsely reporting a workplace injury. The district court1

 granted

Hammons’s motion for summary judgment. Napreljac v. John Q. Hammons Hotels,

Inc., 461 F. Supp. 2d 981 (S.D. Iowa 2006). Napreljac appeals the dismissal of two

claims, an Iowa common law retaliatory discharge claim for exercising his statutory

right to workers’ compensation benefits, and a claim of disability discrimination under

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the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. § 12112(a). Reviewing the

grant of summary judgment de novo and the summary judgment record in the light

most favorable to Napreljac, the non-moving party, we affirm.

I. Background

Napreljac began working for Hammons in September 2000. In January 2002,

he received workers’ compensation benefits for neck surgery after he reported an

injury lifting wet carpet. He returned to work subject to temporary job restrictions

that ended in March 2003. In August 2003, three days after a supervisor criticized

Napreljac's failure to complete his work, he complained about back problems and

work overload and then reported a back injury from moving a television. He again

received workers’ compensation benefits for medical treatment, and a physician

placed him on temporary work restrictions. Napreljac was assigned light duty,

primarily folding towels in the laundry and picking up garbage on the hotel grounds.

On the morning of September 18, 2003, while picking up garbage near the east

loading dock, Napreljac told supervisor Scott Johnston that his back was bothering

him. Later that morning, after reporting to the laundry to fold towels, Napreljac told

supervisor Kevin Beaver that he (Napreljac) had slipped and fallen on the stairs near

a loading dock that morning. Beaver related what Napreljac told him to Human

Resources Manager Jayne Schmeling. At the request of Shannon Kaufman, the

hotel’s General Manager, Beaver and Johnston documented these conversations later

that day. Napreljac denies telling Beaver that he fell on the stairs. 

Beaver and two human resources employees (Schmeling and Jane Postier)

accompanied Napreljac to the stairs in question and asked him to demonstrate what

happened. Napreljac said he was picking up trash on the stairs and took a step that

made his back hurt. Schmeling prepared an accident/investigation report stating that

Napreljac had injured himself while “walking down the steps picking up garbage,”

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and listing the time of the accident as 8:30 a.m. The document appears to be signed

by Napreljac below the description of the injury, but he denies having signed it.

Meanwhile, Kaufman began reviewing tapes from a security camera pointed at the

stairs in question. 

Hammons reported Napreljac’s injury to its workers’ compensation provider,

and Napreljac went to see a doctor. The doctor's notes from this visit stated: “Today

while going down steps and picking up garbage with a stick, [Napreljac] stepped with

R foot and felt extreme pain in R mid low back radiating to both legs.” The doctor

diagnosed a mild lumbar strain, placed Napreljac on tighter temporary work

restrictions, and reported that he could return to work the following day.

Later that day, Kaufman discussed the investigation with Schmeling and

Postier, reviewed the doctor’s notes, and was told by Johnston that Napreljac had not

mentioned an incident on the stairs when they spoke at 8:45 that morning. Kaufman

testified that the video did not show Napreljac on the stairs at 8:30 a.m., the time noted

on the accident/investigation report, and did not show him picking up litter on the

stairs at any point that morning. The video provided no support for the claim that

Napreljac hurt himself going down the stairs, as Kaufman saw no sign of injury when

Napreljac did appear on the video walking down the stairs. 

After giving Napreljac an opportunity to confirm or change what he said had

happened, Kaufman suspended him without pay pending further investigation.

Kaufman terminated Napreljac six days later. The Notice of Termination explained

that “falsification or alteration of company records is just cause for immediate

dismissal” and an investigation proved, contrary to Napreljac’s signed accident report,

that he “was not injured while picking up litter on said date of 9-18-03 [at] said time

of 8:30 a.m.” Following his termination, Napreljac accepted a job at another hotel,

where his activities included replacing drywall. When deposed in February 2006,

Napreljac held a job that included lifting boxes of medicine. 

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II. Workers' Compensation Retaliation

Napreljac first argues that the district court erred in dismissing his claim of

retaliatory discharge. Iowa common law provides a cause of action for an at-will

employee who is discharged contrary to public policy, which includes being

discharged “due to the filing of a workers' compensation claim.” Springer v. Weeks

& Leo Co., 429 N.W.2d 558, 560 (Iowa 1988). To recover damages, the employee

must prove that he was discharged in retaliation for engaging in protected activity.

The Supreme Court of Iowa has not attempted to define protected activity in this

context, other than to describe it generally as “asserting statutory workers'

compensation rights.” Springer v. Weeks & Leo Co., 475 N.W.2d 630, 633 (Iowa

1991). Thus, one issue is whether Napreljac engaged in protected activity when he

falsely reported to Hammons that he had suffered a workplace injury that might give

rise to a workers' compensation claim.

The Supreme Court of Iowa has applied this retaliation doctrine in a number of

cases. In most, the protected activity was clear, as plaintiff had actually filed a claim

for workers’ compensation benefits. See, e.g., Sanford v. Meadow Gold Dairies, Inc.,

534 N.W.2d 410, 412 (Iowa 1995). The Court in these cases generally defined the tort

as requiring the filing of a claim, but in other cases it has not limited the universe of

protected activities to employees who filed claims. For example, in Niblo v. Parr

Mfg., Inc., 445 N.W.2d 351, 353 (Iowa 1989), the Court affirmed a verdict in favor

of a plaintiff who was discharged for merely threatening to file a claim. 

On the other hand, expressing concern with “the specter of a proliferation of

common-law suits in an area largely preempted . . . by workers' compensation

procedures,” the Supreme Court of Iowa held in Below v. Skarr, 569 N.W.2d 510, 512

(Iowa 1997), that “claimed harassment of a worker, including threatened termination,

does not give rise to a claim at common law.” See also Yockey v. State, 540 N.W.2d

418, 421-22 (Iowa 1995) (questioning whether termination for excessive absences

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occasioned by work-related injuries would violate this public policy doctrine). Given

the Court's obvious reluctance to expand this public policy exception to the law of atwill employment, we do not believe the tort extends to all situations in which an

employee reports an injury that would be covered by workers' compensation and the

employer takes action “intended to interfere with the employee's workers'

compensation rights.” Hansen v. Sioux By-Products, 988 F. Supp. 1255, 1267 (N.D.

Iowa 1997). In our view, this formulation is far broader than the Supreme Court of

Iowa has approved. 

In this case, Napreljac was receiving workers’ compensation benefits and was

working under temporary restrictions for a prior back injury when he reported

aggravating that injury at work. Hammons sent him to a workers' compensation

provider for diagnosis and possible treatment. Hammons also investigated the alleged

injury, concluded Napreljac had lied, and terminated him. Whether Napreljac engaged

in protected activity is open to serious doubt. Without question, reporting a workplace

injury to the employer is the first step in pursuing a workers’ compensation remedy.

But falsely reporting an injury is not the exercise of a right protected by the workers'

compensation statute. In some circumstances, for example, where the fact of injury

is undisputed but the cause of the injury is not, the issue should be left to the workers'

compensation claim process, not to the employer's unilateral determination that the

claim of compensable injury is “false.” But that issue is not implicated here.

Like the district court, we conclude that we need not resolve this protected

activity issue because Napreljac failed to prove retaliation -- that his alleged protected

activity caused the termination. See 461 F. Supp. 2d at 1033-37. “The causation

standard in a common-law retaliatory discharge case is high. The employee’s

engagement in protected conduct must be the determinative factor in the employer’s

decision to take adverse action against the employee.” Teachout v. Forest City Cmty.

Sch. Dist., 584 N.W.2d 296, 301 (Iowa 1998) (citation omitted). Here, Hammons

provided workers’ compensation benefits and accommodated Napreljac’s injuries and

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workplace restrictions for several years. Compare Fogel v. Trustees of Iowa Coll.,

446 N.W.2d 451, 455 (Iowa 1989). Hammons’s decision-maker, hotel General

Manager Kaufman, thoroughly investigated the alleged injury, uncovered numerous

grounds for disbelieving Napreljac's injury report, and terminated him for submitting

a false report. We reject the contention that terminating an employee for falsely

reporting an injury constitutes retaliation for the exercise of workers' compensation

rights protected by Iowa public policy. Therefore, we agree with the district court that

Napreljac failed to present evidence sufficient to satisfy the causation element of his

prima facie case. In addition, he presented no evidence showing that the legitimate

reason Kaufman gave for the discharge was pretextual. 

III. Disability Discrimination 

Napreljac next argues that the district court erred in dismissing his disability

discrimination claim under the ADA, which provides that it is unlawful for a “covered

entity [to] discriminate against a qualified individual with a disability because of the

disability.” 42 U.S.C. § 12112(a). “To prove disability discrimination, an employee

must show that (1) [he] is disabled within the meaning of the ADA; (2) [he] is

qualified (with or without reasonable accommodation) to perform the essential

functions of a job; and (3) [he] suffered an adverse employment action because of the

disability.” Henderson v. Ford Motor Co., 403 F.3d 1026, 1034 (8th Cir. 2005). 

The district court concluded that Napreljac failed to show he has “a physical or

mental impairment that substantially limits one or more . . . major life activities,” 42

U.S.C. § 12102(2)(A); therefore, he is not “disabled” within the meaning of the ADA.

461 F. Supp. 2d at 1012-19. Napreljac argued that he was substantially limited in the

major life activity of working, but the court concluded that his work restrictions were

temporary and did not prevent him from continuing to work with those restrictions or

from finding comparable employment at another hotel after his termination. After a

careful review of the record, we agree. “Ability to do another job of the same general

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class is inconsistent with a substantial limitation on the major life activity of

working.” Nuzum v. Ozark Auto. Distribs., Inc., 432 F.3d 839, 848 (8th Cir. 2005).

Because Napreljac’s failure to prove he was disabled is fatal to his ADA claim, we

need not consider the district court’s alternative rulings that Napreljac failed to show

that he was terminated because of a disability and that Hammons’s proffered

legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for the termination was a pretext for unlawful

disability discrimination. 461 F. Supp. 2d at 1020-26. 

The judgment of the district court is affirmed.

______________________________

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