Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/274/740/474955/
Timestamp: 2019-08-17 22:38:08
Document Index: 234247817

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1983', '§ 12111', '§ 12112', '§ 1630', '§ 12102', '§ 1630', '§ 1630', '§ 1630', '§ 12102', '§ 12102', '§ 12102', '§ 12102', '§ 13', '§ 13', '§ 292', '§ 8', '§ 1367', '§ 1367', '§ 1983']

David Giordano, Plaintiff-appellant v. City of New York, Howard Safir, Police Commissioner, New York City Police Department, Medical Board, Police Pension Fund, Article Ii, Defendants-appellees, 274 F.3d 740 (2d Cir. 2001) :: Justia
Justia › US Law › Case Law › Federal Courts › Courts of Appeals › Second Circuit › 2001 › David Giordano, Plaintiff-appellant v. City of New York, Howard Safir, Police Commissioner, New York...
David Giordano, Plaintiff-appellant v. City of New York, Howard Safir, Police Commissioner, New York City Police Department, Medical Board, Police Pension Fund, Article Ii, Defendants-appellees, 274 F.3d 740 (2d Cir. 2001)
US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit - 274 F.3d 740 (2d Cir. 2001)
Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Allen G. Schwartz, Judge) dismissing the plaintiff's complaint under Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. We affirm the dismissal of the plaintiff's federal claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act and 42 U.S.C. § 1983, of, respectively, employment discrimination on the basis of a disability, and violations of the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. We hold, however, that the district court erred by dismissing on the merits the plaintiff's pendent state-law claims under the New York State Executive Law and the New York City Administrative Code. Because we conclude that these claims would be more appropriately adjudicated in state court, we remand with instructions to the district court. Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded with instructions to dismiss the remaining state-law claims without prejudice. [Copyrighted Material Omitted]
Giordano's claims arise from his discharge from the NYPD following a hearing before the defendant Medical Board, Police Pension Fund, Article II ("Article II Board"), which recommended that Giordano "be separated from the Police Department because of [his need for] life long anticoagulation." Giordano alleges that the defendants discharged him in violation of the ADA because they mistakenly "regard [ed] him as disabled" because of his regimen on the drug Coumadin, an anticoagulant. He further alleges that by discharging him without affording him a personal physical examination by the Article II Board and by continuing to employ another full-duty police officer, Thomas Rowe, who also takes Coumadin daily, the defendants violated his constitutional rights under, respectively, the Due Process and the Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Finally, Giordano alleges that the defendants' actions violated his right "to be free of intentional discrimination based on disability," Compl. ¶¶ 57, as defined by the New York State Executive Law and the New York City Administrative Code.
On September 14, 1998, Dr. Eliscer Guzman, Giordano's district surgeon and a cardiologist by training, recommended Giordano for "survey" --i.e., an investigation -- "to ascertain whether [an NYPD employee] is incapacitated for the performance of duty and ought to be retired."3 Giordano testified that Dr. Guzman "told [him] that because [he] take [s] Coumadin [he] could bleed to death in the event of a blow or physical attack and that [he] should put in [his] papers to retire." Concluding that he "had no option," Giordano applied for accident-disability retirement on the same day.
different people with varying lifestyles have more difficulty controlling the amount of anticoagulation and each patient has to be individually evaluated, so that we find people who can't comply or change their diet or change their activities and it causes variation in the amount of anticoagulation or [,] in lay terms, the bleeding tendency of a person because of the Coumadin.
On March 15, 1999, the Article II Board conducted its examination of Giordano's fitness for duty. The Board concluded that his need to take Coumadin rendered him "physically-mentally incapacitated for performance of duty," and that he should therefore be retired. Giordano argues that New York law required the Board to conduct an individual physical examination of him before issuing its recommendation. The Board instead relied exclusively on the reports of other physicians. It "agree [d] with the [ir] almost unanimous opinions . . . that [Giordano] should be separated from the Police Department because of life long anticoagulation which he requires, and should not be on either full duty or patrol." It noted that "the only dissenting opinion [among those physicians] is that of Dr. Gregory Fried." The Board disapproved Giordano's application for accident-disability retirement, concluding that his disability arose from a birth defect unrelated to his employment by the NYPD.
Giordano indisputably satisfies the first and fourth of these elements. The NYPD is an "employer" because it is "engaged in an industry affecting commerce" and employs "15 or more employees for each working day in each of 20 or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year," 42 U.S.C. § 12111(5) (A); and Giordano's involuntary retirement from the NYPD plainly falls within the scope of "adverse employment action," see id. § 12112(a) (prohibiting discrimination with regard to, inter alia, "discharge of employees"). We conclude, however, that Giordano is not "disabled" within the meaning of the ADA and therefore fails to satisfy the second element of his prima facie case.
The EEOC defines a "physical or mental impairment" as a "physiological disorder, or condition" that affects one of the major "body systems," which include the cardiovascular system. See 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(h) (1). To qualify as a disability under the ADA, the relevant impairment must also be of a nature that "substantially limits one or more of the major life activities," 42 U.S.C. § 12102(2) (A); and "working" is among those activities. See 29 C.F.R. § 1630(i). In general, an impairment "substantially limits" a major life activity if it renders a person either (i) "unable" to perform a major life "activity that the average person in the general population can perform"; or (ii) " [s]ignificantly restricted as to the condition, manner or duration under which an individual can perform [that] activity" in comparison to "the average person in the general population." 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(j) (1). But where, as here, the activity is "working," the EEOC regulations define "substantially limits" more precisely:
Id. § 1630.2(j) (3); see also Sutton v. United Air Lines, Inc., 527 U.S. 471, 491 (1999) (discussed below); Bartlett, 226 F.3d at 82-85 (discussing and applying Sutton on remand from the Supreme Court for that purpose). The Court has therefore noted that " [t]o be substantially limited in the major life activity of working . . ., one must be precluded from more than one type of job, a specialized job, or a particular job of choice." Sutton, 527 U.S. at 492.
Giordano asserts that he is "disabled" within the meaning of the ADA, but not because Coumadin in fact substantially limits him in the major life activity of "working" as defined in 42 U.S.C. § 12102(2) (A). To the contrary, Giordano argues that he remains fully qualified and capable of performing his work as a full-duty police officer. He avers, however, that the defendants erroneously "regard him as disabled" within the meaning of 42 U.S.C. § 12102(2) (C). Appellant's Br. at 14 (emphasis added). They mistakenly believe, he asserts -- and the defendants, indeed, readily acknowledge that they believe -- that Coumadin renders Giordano "unable to safely perform the essential functions of [a police officer] without danger to himself and others." Appellees' Br. at 29. As Dr. Thomas, on whose report the Article II Board relied in recommending Giordano's involuntary retirement, concluded: The "plaintiff could sustain catastrophic bleeding from minor injury and should not perform patrol functions."
Under 42 U.S.C. § 12102(2) (C) ("regarded as disabled"), the decisive issue is the employer's perception of his or her employee's alleged impairment. See Colwell v. Suffolk County Police Dep't, 158 F.3d 635, 646 (2d Cir. 1998), cert. denied, 526 U.S. 1018 (1999); Francis v. City of Meriden, 129 F.3d 281, 284 (2d Cir. 1997). Giordano must show not only that the defendants "regarded [him] as somehow disabled," but that they "regarded [him] as disabled within the meaning of the ADA." Colwell, 158 F.3d at 646 (citing Francis, 129 F.3d at 285-86) (emphasis in original). To prevail under § 12102(2) (C), Giordano therefore must establish that the defendants perceived him as substantially limited in his ability to perform a major life activity -- in this case, "working."
In Colwell, we held that the " [c]ontinuous assignment of [policemen] to non-confrontational positions does not permit the inference that the officers were regarded as substantially limited in their ability to do work . . . . The fact that the officers were believed to be unable to wrestle with disturbers of the peace is not enough." 158 F.3d at 647 (emphasis in original). There, the Suffolk County Police Department assigned certain officers to "light duty," which relieved all officers so assigned from substantial risk of confrontation. See id. at 639. Here, by contrast, Personnel Chief Markman testified that the NYPD has "no full duty/non-patrol positions" to which it could assign Giordano.5 The NYPD therefore argues that it could not, in effect, place Giordano on the equivalent of "light duty."
This does not mean, however, that the defendants regarded Giordano as disabled from a "broad class of jobs" compared to "the average person having comparable training, skills, and abilities." Bartlett, 226 F.3d at 82 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Giordano introduced evidence that establishes at most that the defendants regarded him as disabled from police or other investigative or security jobs that involve a substantial risk of physical confrontation. The record contains no evidence from which we can infer that the defendants thought, or had grounds for thinking, that other jobs in the public or private sector -- such as, for example, a job as a security guard or a private investigator, or with a police department that does not require every officer to be capable of patrol duty -- carry the same nature or degree of risk. Giordano stated in an affidavit that the very "duties of police officer which defendants claim [he] cannot perform are the kinds of duties which [he] would have to perform . . . as a private investigator and/or in security which are really the only related fields for which [he is] qualified." The district court correctly noted, however, that Giordano adduced no evidence of the qualifications for these jobs. His assumption that his disqualification from the specific duties of an NYPD police officer will preclude him from working in related fields -- or that the defendants perceived him as such -- is, as the district court noted, " [s]peculation and conjecture," which will not suffice "to defeat a motion for summary judgment." Giordano, 2001 WL 204202, at *4, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2039, at *11 (citing Cifarelli v. Vill. of Babylon, 93 F.3d 47, 51 (2d Cir. 1996)); see also Tubens v. Police Dep't, 48 F. Supp. 2d 412, 419 (S.D.N.Y. 1999) (noting that the plaintiff "has demonstrated at most that the NYPD perceived her as substantially limited in performing only a narrow range of jobs -- those requiring regular strenuous isometric exercise," and that " [the plaintiff] has not provided specific evidence about the kinds of jobs for which she alleges the NYPD perceived her to be disqualified").
Giordano contends, however, that the defendants must at a minimum "articulate a rational basis for the difference in treatment." Appellants' Br. at 28. Giordano does not elaborate on this argument. But he may be relying tacitly on a contention we considered but declined to decide previously: "that the Supreme Court's decision in Olech . . . remov [ed] the requirement that malice or bad faith be shown in order to state a valid 'class of one' equal protection claim." Harlen, 273, F.3d at 499.
As in Harlen, we decline to resolve this issue because its resolution would not affect the outcome of this appeal. Assuming without deciding that Olech changed this Circuit's requirement that a "class of one" plaintiff alleging an equal-protection violation show an illicit motivation, such a plaintiff would still be required to show, not only "irrational and wholly arbitrary" acts, Olech, 528 U.S. at 565 (internal quotation marks omitted), but also intentional disparate treatment. See id. at 564 (observing that the Court's cases have recognized "class of one" equal-protection claims "where the plaintiff alleges that she has been intentionally treated differently from others similarly situated and that there is no rational basis for the difference in treatment") (emphasis added); see also Sioux City Bridge Co. v. Dakota County, 260 U.S. 441, 445 (1923) (noting that " [t]he purpose of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is to secure every person within the State's jurisdiction against intentional and arbitrary discrimination") (internal quotation marks and citation omitted; emphasis added).
N.Y. City Admin. Code § 13-206; see generally Cohen v. Valentine, 58 N.Y.S.2d 415 (Sup. Ct. N.Y. County 1945) (articulating the procedures that must be followed by the New York City Board of Trustees before it may retire a police officer for physical disability), aff'd, 271 A.D. 952, 67 N.Y.S.2d 708 (1st Dep't 1947). The district court concluded that " [t]he plain language of the provisions in question does not call for a 'physical examination' or an 'in-person examination.' . . . If the Board, composed of three medical doctors, believed that it could adequately assess plaintiff without an in-person examination, this Court will not require an in-person examination when the City Council has not seen fit to do so." Giordano, 2001 WL 204202, at *8, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2039, at *22. We agree. No fewer than six physicians expressed views on Giordano's fitness to work as an NYPD police officer. Some of these physicians examined Giordano in person, and the Article II Board reviewed their reports as well as the medical records from Giordano's surgery. We see no basis for holding that as a matter of constitutional due process, the Article II Board, comprised of three physicians who presumably possess the expertise to evaluate medical records, is also required to conduct what may be no more than a perfunctory physical examination of each potential retiree whom they are called upon to assess under N.Y. City Admin. Code § 13-206. See Matthews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 335 (1976) (holding that the "specific dictates of due process" must be determined by weighing (1) "the private interest that will be affected by the official action"; (2) "the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedures"; and (3) the government's "fiscal and administrative" interests). On this appeal, we conclude that "the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedures" -- namely, the additional physical examination by the Article II Board itself to which Giordano asserts a right -- would be insignificant. Finally, we note that we have held that due process in this context does not require an adversarial hearing before the City's Board of Trustees, which possesses the ultimate authority to accept or reject the Article II Board's recommendation. See Basciano v. Herkimer, 605 F.2d 605, 611 (2d Cir. 1978), cert. denied, 442 U.S. 929 (1979); see also Calzerano v. Bd. of Trs. of the Police Pension Fund, 877 F. Supp. 161, 164 (S.D.N.Y. 1995). It is a fortiori improbable that due process in this context requires the particular procedure -- i.e., a personal medical exam -- that Giordano claims the subordinate Article II Board should have conducted before making its recommendation to that Board of Trustees.7
N.Y. Exec. Law § 292(21) (a). According to the City Code, "The term 'disability' means any physical, medical, mental or psychological impairment, or a history or record of such impairment." N.Y. City Admin. Code § 8-102(16) (a). Neither of these definitions requires Giordano to show that his disability "substantially limits a major life activity." See Hazeldine v. Beverage Media, Ltd., 954 F. Supp. 697, 706 (S.D.N.Y. 1997) (observing that a person can be disabled within the meanings of New York's state and municipal laws even if his or her impairment does not substantially limit a major life activity); accord Reeves, 140 F.3d at 155 (same) (citing Hazeldine).
Because we conclude that Giordano failed to introduce evidence that the defendants "regarded him as disabled" under the ADA, we do not reach these issues. We think that in the absence of any remaining federal claims, the appropriate analytic framework to be applied to discrimination claims based on a "disability" as defined by New York state and municipal law is a question best left to the courts of the State of New York. While the statute governing supplemental jurisdiction, 28 U.S.C. § 1367, does not require dismissal of pendent state-law claims where all of the federal claims have been dismissed, see id. § 1367(c) (3), "if it appears that the state issues substantially predominate, whether in terms of proof, of the scope of the issues raised, or of the comprehensiveness of the remedy sought, the state claims may be dismissed without prejudice and left for resolution to state tribunals." United Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 726-27 (1966); see also Seabrook v. Jacobson, 153 F.3d 70, 72 (2d Cir. 1998) (noting that it is particularly appropriate for the district court to dismiss where "the federal claim on which the state claim hangs has been dismissed"); Marcus v. AT&T Corp., 138 F.3d 46, 57 (2d Cir. 1998) ("In general, where the federal claims are dismissed before trial, the state claims should be dismissed as well.") (citing Purgess v. Sharrock, 33 F.3d 134, 138 (2d Cir. 1994), and Baylis v. Marriott Corp., 843 F.2d 658, 664-65 (2d Cir. 1988)). Indeed, we conclude that the state-law claims should be dismissed so that state courts can, if so called upon, decide for themselves whatever questions of state law this case may present. Cf. Robison v. Via, 821 F.2d 913, 925 (2d Cir. 1987) (remarking that it "may be an abuse of the district court's discretion" not to remand state-court claims especially when they involve "novel questions of state law").
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment to the defendants on Giordano's ADA and § 1983 claims. We vacate that part of the judgment granting summary judgment to the defendants on Giordano's state and municipal law claims, as well as the findings and conclusions set forth in section III(A) (ii) of the district court's opinion as to whether Giordano was otherwise qualified to perform the essential functions of his job. We remand with directions to dismiss the remaining claims without prejudice to their being brought in an appropriate state forum.
Giordano's affidavit states that Dr. Fried restored him to full duty on September 19, although his brief, like Dr. Fried's testimony, places the date " [o]n or about September 21, 1998."