In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

No. 23-1165 

LUZMARIA ARROYO, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v.

VOLVO GROUP NORTH AMERICA, LLC, doing business as Volvo 

Parts North America, 

Defendant-Appellee. 

____________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. 

No. 1:12-cv-6859 — Robert M. Dow, Jr., Judge. 

____________________ 

ARGUED JANUARY 25, 2024 — DECIDED FEBRUARY 27, 2024 

____________________ 

Before HAMILTON, BRENNAN, and KIRSCH, Circuit Judges. 

KIRSCH, Circuit Judge. LuzMaria Arroyo, an Army Reservist, sued her employer, Volvo Group North America, LLC, alleging discrimination based on her military status and her related post-traumatic stress disorder. After we reversed the 

district court’s ruling granting summary judgment to Volvo, 

the case proceeded to trial, where a jury ruled for Arroyo and 

awarded her $7,800,000 in damages. Following trial, the 
2 No. 23-1165 

district court granted judgment as a matter of law to Volvo on 

Arroyo’s Americans with Disabilities Act claim and ordered 

a new trial on the remaining Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act claim. After the jury 

found for Volvo in the second trial, Arroyo appealed. Because 

Arroyo is not a qualified individual under the ADA, and because the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding 

that the jury verdict of the first trial resulted from passion and 

prejudice, we affirm.

I 

LuzMaria Arroyo worked for Volvo Group North America, LLC, from June 2005 until her termination in November 

2011. During that time, Arroyo also served as an Army Reservist and often had to take time off from Volvo to attend to 

her military duties. Because of her military service, Arroyo 

suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. Volvo was 

aware of Arroyo’s military status and her PTSD diagnosis at 

all relevant times during her employment. 

Employees at Volvo are subject to an attendance policy under which the employee receives a whole or fractional “occurrence” every time he or she arrives late to work without 

providing required documentation. The policy outlines the 

disciplinary steps to be taken as an employee accrues more 

occurrences, with the last step resulting in termination. After 

returning from a tour of duty in 2010, Arroyo accumulated 

several occurrences, most of which involved her arriving to 

work a few minutes late.

Ultimately, Volvo terminated Arroyo’s employment.

While Volvo claimed Arroyo’s termination stemmed from her 

violations of the attendance policy, Arroyo believed her 
No. 23-1165 3 

termination was the result of discrimination based on her disability and her status as a member of the military. Therefore, 

in August 2012, she sued Volvo for discrimination under Title 

VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e et seq., 

the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12101 et seq., 

the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. §§ 791 et seq., and the 

Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights 

Act, 38 U.S.C. §§ 4301 et seq.; she also brought an intentional 

infliction of emotional distress claim under state law.

The district court granted summary judgment to Volvo on 

all claims, and Arroyo appealed. We reversed on Arroyo’s 

ADA and USERRA claims. Arroyo v. Volvo Grp. N.A., LLC, 805 

F.3d 278, 286–87 (7th Cir. 2015) (“Arroyo I”). On remand, the 

parties proceeded to trial on those two claims. A jury returned 

a verdict in favor of Arroyo across the board, awarding her

$2,600,000 in compensatory damages and $5,200,000 in punitive damages for her ADA claim and finding that Volvo willfully violated USERRA (because of the liability finding under 

the ADA, damages were not awarded under the USERRA 

claim). After Arroyo requested equitable relief following trial, 

the district court awarded her back pay, front pay, and other 

employment-related compensation. However, pursuant to 

the statutory cap under 42 U.S.C. § 1981a(b)(3)(D) of the ADA, 

the district court reduced Arroyo’s compensatory and punitive damages award to $300,000. 

Volvo then moved for judgment as a matter of law or, alternatively, a new trial. Fed. R. Civ. P. 50 & 59. The district 

court granted Volvo’s motion for judgment as a matter of law 

on the ADA claim because Arroyo failed to show at trial that 

she was a qualified individual under the ADA. The court next

addressed Volvo’s motion for a new trial. In doing so, the 
4 No. 23-1165 

court first found the jury’s damages award on the ADA claim 

to be monstrously excessive and the result of passion and 

prejudice. But because the court had already resolved the 

ADA claim in Volvo’s favor, it only needed to determine 

whether that passion and prejudice likewise infected the 

jury’s liability determination on the USERRA claim. The court 

concluded that it did, thereby warranting a new trial on the 

USERRA claim alone.

In February 2022, the district court held a second jury trial 

on the USERRA claim. Prior to trial, the district court excluded evidence of Arroyo’s PTSD diagnosis and treatment, 

finding the evidence irrelevant to the USERRA claim and 

likely to confuse the jury. Ultimately, the jury found in favor 

of Volvo. Arroyo, understandably frustrated with the result, 

filed a Rule 59(e) motion to reconsider. In her motion, Arroyo 

did not explicitly seek a new trial; rather, she asked the court 

to set aside the verdict in the second jury trial and reinstate 

the verdict rendered in the first. The district court interpreted

Arroyo’s request for relief as a motion seeking reconsideration of its earlier order resolving the ADA claim and granting 

a new trial on the USERRA claim. The court denied the motion. Arroyo timely appealed. 

II

Arroyo challenges the district court’s orders granting 

judgment as a matter of law to Volvo on the ADA claim and 

ordering a new trial on the USERRA claim. Arroyo also appeals the denial of her motion to reconsider, but we need not 

address that motion because we are reviewing the underlying 

orders on the merits.
No. 23-1165 5 

A 

The district court granted Volvo judgment as a matter of 

law on the ADA claim because Arroyo failed to prove that she 

was a qualified individual under the statute. We review a district court’s decision to grant judgment as a matter of law de 

novo. Learning Curve Toys, Inc. v. PlayWood Toys, Inc., 342 F.3d 

714, 721 (7th Cir. 2003). 

A plaintiff may only recover under the ADA if she is a 

“qualified individual,” in other words, someone who, “with 

or without reasonable accommodation, can perform the essential functions of the job.” Peters v. City of Mauston, 311 F.3d 

835, 842 (7th Cir. 2002) (citing 42 U.S.C. § 12111(8)). While regular attendance is not an essential function of every job, Jovanovic v. In-Sink-Erator Div. of Emerson Elec. Co., 201 F.3d 894, 

900 (7th Cir. 2000), an employer may treat regular attendance 

as an essential job requirement and need not accommodate 

unreliable attendance, Taylor-Novotny v. Health All. Med. Plans, 

Inc., 772 F.3d 478, 489 (7th Cir. 2014). 

Here, Volvo maintained a policy that clearly outlined its

attendance requirement, explained how an employee accumulates “occurrences” for arriving late to work, and listed the

consequences that would result from reaching a certain number of occurrences. Volvo thus undoubtedly viewed regular 

and timely attendance as an essential job function. See id. at 

490 (treating regular attendance as an essential job function in 

part because the employer had an explicit attendance policy 

in place); see also 42 U.S.C. § 12111(8) (“[C]onsideration shall 

be given to the employer's judgment as to what functions of a 

job are essential ... .”). Arroyo indisputably arrived to work 

late several times and ultimately accumulated sufficient occurrences for termination under Volvo’s policy; she therefore 
6 No. 23-1165 

did not perform an essential job function, barring her status 

as a qualified individual under the ADA.

Arroyo’s counterarguments are unpersuasive. First, she 

argues that she is a qualified individual because her supervisors consistently gave her positive job performance reviews. 

But Volvo only terminated Arroyo because of her attendance 

issues; her otherwise satisfactory job performance is irrelevant. See Waggoner v. Olin Corp., 169 F.3d 481, 485 (7th Cir. 

1999) (“[A]n evaluation of the quality of Tyndall’s performance does not end our inquiry. In addition to possessing the 

skills necessary to perform the job in question, an employee 

must be willing and able to demonstrate these skills by coming to work on a regular basis.”) (quotation omitted) (alteration in original). 

Second, Arroyo complains of the unreasonable strictness 

of Volvo’s policy, noting that she often received occurrences 

for arriving a mere one or two minutes late. But we are not a 

“super-personnel department that second-guesses facially legitimate employer policies,” and it is not our role “to determine whether an employer’s expectations were fair, prudent, 

or reasonable.” Boss v. Castro, 816 F.3d 910, 917 (7th Cir. 2016)

(citation omitted). Simply, Volvo required its employees to be 

in the building and ready to work at their scheduled time, yet 

Arroyo failed to perform that essential job function, however

minimally.

Finally, Arroyo believes that the district court’s actions 

contravened our decision in Arroyo I. But we reversed on the 

ADA claim solely because the record contained sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find that Volvo discriminated 

against Arroyo based on her disability. Arroyo I, 805 F.3d at 

287. Our decision did not discuss Arroyo’s status as a 
No. 23-1165 7 

qualified individual under the ADA; the district court’s grant 

of judgment as a matter of law based on that ground therefore 

did not conflict with our decision in Arroyo I. Accordingly, the 

district court properly granted Volvo’s motion for judgment 

as a matter of law on the ADA claim.

B 

The district court ordered a new trial on the USERRA

claim by finding that the jury’s verdict as to the ADA claim 

resulted from passion and prejudice that also infected the 

jury’s determination of USERRA liability. We review a district 

court’s ruling on a motion for a new trial for abuse of discretion. Hakim v. Safariland, LLC, 79 F.4th 861, 868 (7th Cir. 2023).

A district court can order a new trial “if the verdict is not 

rationally connected to the evidence, if it is born out of passion and prejudice, or if it is monstrously excessive.” Slane v. 

Mariah Boats, Inc., 164 F.3d 1065, 1067 (7th Cir. 1999). Typically, when a court finds that the damages portion of a jury 

verdict stemmed from passion and prejudice, a new trial on 

both damages and the underlying liability is warranted. See 

Ustrak v. Fairman, 781 F.2d 573, 579–80 (7th Cir. 1986) (“The 

damages awarded by the jury ... were so extraordinary as to 

suggest that not only the jury’s assessment of damages but 

also its assessment of liability may have been tainted by ‘passion and prejudice,’ thereby requiring that the entire verdict, 

and not merely the damages part of it, be set aside.”); McKinnon v. City of Berwyn, 750 F.2d 1383, 1389 (7th Cir. 1984) (“If 

the motion is renewed and a new trial ordered, it will be limited to damages unless the ground of the order setting aside 

the verdict is such as to imply that the whole verdict was 

tainted—for example, because the jury was carried away by 

passion or prejudice.”). 
8 No. 23-1165 

Here, the jury awarded Arroyo a substantial sum for the 

ADA claim: $2,600,000 in compensatory damages and 

$5,200,000 in punitive damages. The district court correctly 

acknowledged that a large damages award alone does not automatically lead to an inference of passion and prejudice. See 

Dresser Indus., Inc., Waukesha Engine Div. v. Gradall Co., 965 

F.2d 1442, 1448–49 (7th Cir. 1992). Instead, the court emphasized Arroyo’s failure to present any evidence of compensatory damages at trial. It then noted that the award dwarfed

the sums given in similar cases where at least some evidence 

of damages was presented. See Adams v. City of Chicago, 798 

F.3d 539, 543 (7th Cir. 2015) (noting that a comparison to 

awards in similar cases is a factor to consider in determining 

the excessiveness of an award); cf. E.E.O.C. v. AutoZone, Inc., 

707 F.3d 824, 834 (7th Cir. 2013) (in an ADA case, citing examples of compensatory damages awarded by juries that fell between $50,000 and $250,000). Finally, the court observed that 

it could not reasonably separate the jury’s verdict on the ADA 

claim from the closely related USERRA claim, rendering the 

entire verdict tainted.

Arroyo does not point to any evidence of compensatory 

damages that she presented at trial, nor does she otherwise 

explain how the district court erred in granting a new trial on 

the USERRA claim. We conclude that the district court acted 

within its discretion when it found that the jury’s ADA damages award resulted from passion and prejudice that infected 

the rest of the verdict, thereby warranting a new trial on the 

remaining USERRA claim.

Finally, it is unclear from her motion for reconsideration

following the second trial whether Arroyo ever sought a new 

trial. Assuming she did, the only alleged error she raises on 
No. 23-1165 9 

appeal was the district court’s decision to exclude evidence of 

her PTSD diagnosis and treatment. But only the USERRA 

claim remained in the second trial, and USERRA prohibits 

discrimination based on military status alone rather than on 

conditions stemming therefrom. See 38 U.S.C. § 4311(a) (“A 

person who is a member of, applies to be a member of, performs, has performed, applies to perform, or has an obligation 

to perform service in a uniformed service shall not be denied 

... any benefit of employment by an employer on the basis of 

that membership ... .”) (emphasis added); see also Holmes v. 

Dep’t of Justice, 498 F. App’x 993, 995 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (“A PTSD 

injury alone is not enough to raise a cognizable discrimination 

claim under USERRA.”). Thus, the district court did not abuse 

its discretion in excluding evidence of Arroyo’s PTSD as irrelevant.

AFFIRMED