Opinion ID: 757637
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Excel's Medical Layoff Policy and its Implementation

Text: 28 The plaintiffs have no complaint about the way Excel treated them during their recuperation period, when they were given light-duty jobs. Our scrutiny of Excel's policies and procedures begins, therefore, at the point that an employee's injuries are determined medically to be permanent restrictions. At that stage, Excel considers whether that employee can resume his old pre-injury job, with or without accommodation, or can be reassigned to another position, with or without accommodation, or must be placed on medical layoff. The plaintiffs claim that Excel violates the ADA at that stage by failing to engage in an interactive process of identifying the employee's precise limitations and by failing to make a good faith effort to identify appropriate accommodations. The plaintiffs focus on various steps in Excel's medical layoff process to support their claim that Excel violated the ADA. We shall examine seriatim each challenge they raise.
29 The plaintiffs point out that an employer is required to consider all reasonable job assignments when accommodating a disabled employee; when an employee asks for work, the employer must attempt to reassign him to any available vacant job for which he is qualified. The plaintiffs assert that they had asked for continued employment anywhere in the plant, either in the jobs they had or in any other one, even at a lower salary. They claim that, by making such a request, they showed the requisite interest to trigger Excel's duty to suggest reassignment accommodations to any available job. However, Excel's policy, they explain, was that disabled employees were considered for reassignment only to production, not nonproduction, jobs. Therefore the 240-270 nonproduction jobs that accommodated the class members' disabilities were not available to them. According to the plaintiffs, this policy of excluding all nonproduction jobs from consideration violates the ADA. 30 Excel responds that it did not exclude nonproduction jobs from reassignment consideration. Although it automatically bid the disabled employees only for production positions, Excel insists it would consider any employee for any nonproduction job for which he applied. Excel suggests that the employee also has responsibility for identifying a reasonable accommodation. The company claims that it made extraordinary efforts toward accommodating injured employees and should not be penalized by making it carry those efforts even further. 31 As we noted above, the ADA's definition of reasonable accommodation includes reassignment to a vacant position for which the employee is qualified. 42 U.S.C. § 12111(9)(B). A request as straightforward as asking for continued employment is a sufficient request for accommodation. See Miller, 107 F.3d at 486-87 (Even if an employee who as here becomes disabled while employed just says to the employer, 'I want to keep working for you--do you have any suggestions?' the employer has a duty under the Act to ascertain whether he has some job that the employee might be able to fill.). We recently concluded that section 12111(9)(B) has the effect of making the duty to transfer to another position roughly commensurate with the full class or range of jobs the employee is capable of performing. DePaoli v. Abbott Labs., 140 F.3d 668, 675 (7th Cir.1998). We held that the ADA affirmatively compels consideration of job reassignment to a vacant position, but also allows an employer to consider legitimate nondiscriminatory prerequisites to jobs, such as the requirement of prior experience or the limitation of a position to temporary use only. Id. In Dalton v. Subaru-Isuzu Automotive, Inc., 141 F.3d 667 (7th Cir.1998), we reiterated the point: 32 In our view, in order to be considered qualified for the potential new position, the individual must again (1) satisfy the legitimate prerequisites for that alternative position, and (2) be able to perform the essential functions of that position with or without reasonable accommodation. 33 Id. at 678. We also clarified an employer's duty to his employee to accommodate by means of reassignment. First, an employer is required to identify the full range of alternative positions for which the individual satisfies the employer's legitimate, nondiscriminatory prerequisites. Id. Next, he must determine whether the employee's own knowledge, skills, and abilities would enable her to perform the essential functions of any of those alternative positions, with or without reasonable accommodations. Id. We underscored that an employer's duty to accommodate requires it to consider transferring the employee to any of these other jobs, including those that would represent a demotion. Id. (citing 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(j)(3)(ii)(C) (defining broad range of jobs in various classes); 29 C.F.R. Pt. 1630, App. § 1630.2(o)). We also explained how an employer should accomplish the job-matching required: 34 The critical factor is the match between the employee's knowledge, skills, and abilities, and the legitimate requirements for other positions with the employer; it is not whether those other positions look exactly like the job the employee's disability prevents him or her from performing. This interpretation is consistent with the language from the House Report on the bill that became the ADA, to which we referred in Gile, 95 F.3d at 498: 35 If an employee, because of his disability, can no longer perform the essential functions of the job that he or she has held, a transfer to another vacant job for which the person is qualified may prevent the employee from being out of work and the employer from losing a valuable worker. 36 H.R.Rep. No. 485(II), 101st Cong., 2d Sess. (1990), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin. News 1990, 267. It is also consistent with the overall structure of the ADA to look to the class of jobs or broad range of jobs that the employer might give to a person with the plaintiff's qualifications. Cf. 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(j)(3)(ii)(B) (defining class of jobs). 37 Id. at 678-79 (quoting Gile v. United Airlines, 95 F.3d 492, 498 (7th Cir.1996)). 38 It is clear from our case law, therefore, that Excel has the duty to consider reassigning its disabled employees to other jobs for which they are qualified. See Baert v. Euclid Beverage, Ltd., 149 F.3d 626, 633-34 (7th Cir.1998) (noting that employee requested to be assigned to any open position and that there was a genuine issue whether there were open positions available that he could perform). Excel is required to identify the full range of alternative positions available and to consider transferring the employee to any of these other jobs, including those that would represent a demotion. Dalton, 141 F.3d at 678 (emphasis added). Of course, [n]othing in the ADA requires an employer to abandon its legitimate, nondiscriminatory company policies defining job qualifications, prerequisites, and entitlements to intra-company transfers. Id. On this record, we do not believe it can be said, as a matter of law, that Excel's policy fulfills those requisites. Its policy fails, in fact refuses, to consider reassigning its permanently restricted employees to nonproduction jobs unless the employee independently learns about the vacancy and applies for the job. Yet, on this record, it appears questionable whether Excel affords these employees an adequate opportunity to learn of the nonproduction jobs and to express an interest in them. Excel's disclaimers--that it did not prohibit disabled employees from applying for these jobs, that it would have shown a disabled employee a nonproduction job if he had asked, that nonproduction jobs were posted, and that it of course would consider any employee's application for a nonproduction job--are insufficient to support summary judgment in light of at least two hurdles Excel placed in front of the employees on medical layoff. First, the record evidence indicates that Excel had told the laid-off employees that their names would be bid automatically for all available positions in the plant. Second, job openings were posted inside the plant and were left posted for a period of only two days; the employees on medical layoff were not given access to the plant during their layoff period and, instead, were told to call the plant once a week--at which time they were told that there were no openings. Excel disputes some of that evidence. In our view, there are genuine issues of material fact concerning (1) the extent to which Excel may have misled its disabled employees, when it placed them on medical layoff, by representing that it would automatically bid them for every job in the plant, and (2) the extent to which laid-off employees had access to posted jobs and other job listings. Resolution of either of these issues in favor of the employees might justify the jury's concluding that the laid-off employees may have been denied the chance to consider all available job opportunities. We hold, therefore, that the district court erred in concluding, on this record, that Excel had gone above and beyond what the ADA required because the company gave plant tours and automatically bid the permanently restricted employees for production jobs. See 972 F.Supp. at 473. Accordingly, we remand this case for further consideration of the automatic bidding procedure and the ability of laid-off disabled employees to access the information about job vacancies.
39 It is Excel's policy, explain the plaintiffs, initially to place injured workers in other jobs--other production jobs, nonproduction jobs or light-duty jobs--that they can perform while they are recuperating from their injuries. However, when Excel determines that an injured employee's medical restrictions are permanent, the company removes him from his recuperation period job and places him on medical layoff. The plaintiffs contend that the district court erred in concluding that all such jobs were temporary and therefore did not need to be considered when reasonably accommodating the disabled employees. According to the plaintiffs, the record evidence indicates that Excel removed permanently restricted employees from regular, permanent production and nonproduction jobs solely because Excel had determined that the employees were disabled and could not perform their pre-injury production jobs. In this regard, the plaintiffs charge that the company violated the ADA in two ways: First, it took regular, permanent jobs in the plant, relabeled them as light-duty (and, implicitly, as temporary) and then excluded permanently handicapped employees from those jobs. Second, Excel removed qualified workers from regular, permanent plant jobs which they were performing successfully solely because they were not capable of doing their pre-injury jobs. The plaintiffs contend that the relevant inquiry is not whether a disabled employee was qualified for the job he held prior to the injury but rather whether he is qualified to do the job he currently holds. 40 Excel responds that the ADA does not require an employer to establish light-duty assignments and certainly does not compel an employer to make such assignments permanent. Excel contends that it cannot be deemed to have violated the ADA by reserving light-duty positions for the specific purpose of accommodating the employees' temporary medical restrictions and then by discontinuing those assignments after the class members' medical restrictions changed. The company urges us to uphold the district court's conclusion that Excel's two-pronged policy of setting aside certain jobs for injured employees, to help them in their transition back into mainstream jobs, and then of removing the employees from those temporary light-duty positions once they were determined to be permanently restricted did not violate the ADA. 41 Our case law and the EEOC's interpretation of the ADA have approved of an employer's offer of light-duty assignments as a reasonable accommodation for injured workers. See, e.g., Dalton, 141 F.3d at 680; EEOC Enforcement Guidance: Workers' Compensation and the ADA, 8 FEP Manual (BNA) at 405:7401 (1996) (An employer may recognize a special obligation arising out of the employment relationship to create a light duty position for an employee when s/he has been injured while performing work for the employer and, as a consequence, is unable to perform his/her regular job duties.). The EEOC's Technical Assistance Manual provides specific guidance on light-duty jobs: 42 [I]f an employer already has a vacant light duty position for which an injured worker is qualified, it might be a reasonable accommodation to reassign the worker to that position. If the position was created as a temporary job, a reassignment to that position need only be for a temporary period. 43 When an employer places an injured worker in a temporary light duty position, that worker is otherwise qualified for that position for the term of that position; a worker's qualifications must be gauged in relation to the position occupied, not in relation to the job held prior to the injury. It may be necessary to provide additional reasonable accommodation to enable an injured worker in a light duty position to perform the essential functions of that position. 44 EEOC: Technical Assistance on Title I of ADA, 8 FEP Manual (BNA) § 9.4 at 405:7057-58 (1992). In Dalton, we reviewed a light-duty program set up for employees recuperating from recent injuries whose disabilities were temporary. The employees could have the light-duty jobs for 90 days only; the positions then were available for other injured workers. Dalton considered an allegation much like the one before us today: the complaint of those employees who had been removed from light-duty jobs, when they were well qualified to continue performing their temporary jobs, in order to allow other injured workers to fill the jobs. In Dalton, we found that the temporary and limited nature of the light-duty program did not violate the ADA. 45 The ADA does not compel an employer to reduce the number of bona fide temporary jobs it has set aside ... and to convert them to permanent positions for its disabled employees. The ADA does require that [the employer] make its light-duty program available to disabled employees who are recuperating from temporary restrictions and are otherwise qualified to participate. See C.F.R. Pt. 1630, App. § 1630.9. But nothing here indicates that [the employer] failed to do that, and it was entitled to reserve a reasonable number of positions for this special purpose. To hold otherwise would be to require [the employer] to create new full-time positions to accommodate its disabled employees, a course of action not required under the ADA. 46 Id. at 680; see also EEOC Enforcement Guidance, 8 FEP Manual (BNA) at 405:7402 (An employer is free to determine that a light duty position will be temporary rather than permanent.). As we suggested in Dalton, we believe that it would frustrate the ADA for permanently impaired employees to fill temporary light-duty assignments when those jobs have been set aside specifically for recuperating employees. In the case before us, employees were given light-duty positions with no end-date, no specified period for holding the job; they remained in those jobs until a medical decision concerning the permanence of their disabilities was rendered. Although we believe that the temporary nature of a light-duty program should not be adjudged by the absoluteness of the time period in which an injured employee may participate, we note that Excel specifically created light-duty positions in the CBA but did not designate those jobs as temporary. 8 Excel's light-duty jobs were placed outside the normal bidding procedures; but it remains a question of fact whether the jobs were temporary. If the light-duty positions truly are temporary, Excel was not required to convert them into permanent ones for the permanently restricted employees. See Dalton, 141 F.3d at 680. However, if the job in which an injured employee was placed is in fact a vacant permanent job, production or nonproduction, and it is suitable for an employee with a disability, then the employee's assignment to that position must be treated as a reassignment to a permanent job for purposes of accommodation. See EEOC Enforcement Guidance, 8 FEP Manual at 405:7402 (In some cases, the only effective reasonable accommodation available for an individual with a disability may be similar or equivalent to a light-duty position. The employer would have to provide that reasonable accommodation unless the employer can demonstrate that doing so would impose an undue hardship.). 47 The plaintiffs claim that some of them were working such regular production jobs as trim thyroids, turn hogs, trim butts, tend skinner, front foot cutoff, ham boning and combo make-up. Others were given nonproduction work such as jobs in the purchasing department or the nurses' station. Presented with this evidence, we are persuaded that there is a genuine issue of triable fact as to whether Excel properly implemented its light-duty policy. An employer can take the least strenuous of its jobs, put them in a pool for temporary light-duty work, and use them so its employees can get back on their feet. We believe, however, that the evidence of record was insufficient to determine the extent to which Excel may have assigned injured employees to less strenuous work that was not formally classified temporary light-duty work. There is also a genuine issue as to whether the injured employees knew that the jobs in which they initially were placed were truly temporary or whether they could consider the jobs a reasonable accommodation for their impairments. 48
49 The collective bargaining agreement between Excel and the Union contains the following provision: 50 Layoff, recall and promotion will be based on length of service within a department or the plant, provided the qualifications, ability to perform the work and physical fitness are equal among employees eligible for consideration. 51 CBA, Art. XIII, § 1(B) (emphasis added). 52 The plaintiffs assert that policies concerning employment decisions that tend to screen out disabled persons violate the ADA unless the selection criteria are shown to be job-related. 53 According to the plaintiffs, physical ability is legitimately part of the qualifications and ability to perform requirements of the provision but is not an additional criterion. Because Excel's policy requires physical fitness, it rejects an individualized assessment of a disabled employee's ability to perform a job and screens out those with a disability. Such a policy constitutes a per se violation of the ADA because it requires a disabled person to show that, in addition to being qualified and able to perform a given job, he or she is also at least as physically fit as all the other applicants. 54 Excel responds that there is nothing in the record to show that any employee ever was laid off, denied recall or denied a promotion in deference to another employee based on the relative degree to which employees were deemed to possess physical fitness. Without such evidence, Excel claims, the district court could not have found that the words in the labor contract signified a policy which violated the ADA. Moreover, it asserts, the clause requires an individualized assessment of a candidate's ability to perform, and that assessment must include his physical capabilities. Because there is no evidence that the physical fitness factor was used to disqualify disabled employees, Excel contends that reversal of the judgment is not warranted. 55 The ADA regulations expressly forbid an employer 56 to use qualification standards, employment tests or other selection criteria that screen out or tend to screen out ... a class of individuals with disabilities, on the basis of disability, unless the standard, test or other selection criteria, as used by the covered entity, is shown to be job-related for the position in question and is consistent with business necessity. 57 29 C.F.R. § 1630.10. The purpose of this provision is to ensure that individuals with disabilities are not excluded from job opportunities unless they are actually unable to do the job. 29 C.F.R. Pt. 1630, App. § 1630.10. Section 1(B) of Article XIII of the CBA states that seniority is the basis for deciding layoff, recall and promotion rights--provided that three selection criteria are equal among employees eligible for consideration. The three are qualifications, ability to perform the work, and physical fitness. We do not question that employees eligible for consideration in layoffs, recalls and promotions must have the proper qualifications and the ability to perform the work. Those selection criteria are job-related to any position. However, the third criterion, physical fitness, is job-related only to the extent of the employee's ability to perform the work. See 29 C.F.R. Pt. 1630, App. § 1630.10 (The purpose ... is to ensure that there is a fit between job criteria and an applicant's (or employee's) actual ability to do the job.). In our view, the separate criterion of physical fitness--unrelated to job requirements--as a qualification standard for promotions, layoffs and recalls tends to screen out, whether intentionally or unintentionally, disabled employees. We do not believe it should be a separate general qualification standard for all of the varied jobs at Excel. Those positions that require physical fitness necessarily incorporate the criterion in their performance ability criterion. Even when physical fitness is a selection criterion that is related to an essential function of the job, however, it may not be used to exclude an individual with a disability if that individual could satisfy the criteri[on] with the provision of a reasonable accommodation. 29 C.F.R. Pt. 1630, App. § 1630.10 (emphasis added). To the extent physical fitness is a separate criterion, therefore, it has the capacity to screen out disabled employees and therefore the possibility of violating the ADA's requirement of an individualized assessment of an employee's capabilities. See 29 C.F.R. § 1630.7 (It is unlawful for a covered entity to use standards, criteria, or methods of administration, which are not job-related and consistent with business necessity, and: (a) That have the effect of discriminating on the basis of disability); Weigel v. Target Stores, 122 F.3d 461, 466 (7th Cir.1997) (stating that the determination of whether one qualifies as a qualified individual with a disability necessarily involves an individualized assessment of the individual and the relevant position); see also Heise v. Genuine Parts Co., 900 F.Supp. 1137, 1154 & n. 10 (D.Minn.1995) (holding that a must be cured or 100% healed policy is a per se violation of the ADA because the policy does not allow a case-by-case assessment of an individual's ability to perform essential functions of the individual's job, with or without accommodation); Hutchinson v. United Parcel Serv., Inc., 883 F.Supp. 379 (N.D.Iowa 1995) (same). 58 An independent physical fitness criterion is most troubling. In our view, this clause, when read in the context of the entire section of the collective bargaining agreement, is susceptible of more than one reading. We cannot be certain, in the absence of evidence in the record, that the parties to this collective bargaining agreement have interpreted that phrase as imposing an independent physical fitness criterion on the class members. Further examination of this issue in the district court is required.
59 The plaintiffs' contentions on appeal culminate with a broad charge that Excel failed to engage in the interactive process required under the ADA. According to the plaintiffs, Excel's medical layoff policy and the procedures used to implement its policy violated the ADA by preventing all disabled employees from obtaining reassignment or reemployment in its plant after their injuries. First, the employees were not automatically bid on nonproduction jobs, which were the jobs most likely to accommodate their disabilities. However, because Excel informed the employees that they would be bid automatically on every job in the plant, the plaintiffs saw no reason to apply for them. Second, the automatic bid procedure precluded any chance for job accommodation. The employees could not come into the plant to review the job postings on their own; when they called the plant about jobs once a week, as required, a clerk told them there was no job--despite the fact that the record indicates that the class members were the most senior bidders on a given job. Third, the Excel nurses unilaterally determined on behalf of Excel that an employee was incapable of performing the job in question. There was no discussion of accommodation because there was no mention that a potential job existed. According to the plaintiffs, Excel terminated the accommodation dialogue before it began. 60 The plaintiffs further assert that the district court erred in believing that the class members caused the breakdown in communication; receiving Excel's no job message was the end of communications. Excel's conduct in telling plaintiffs there was no job falls short of the ADA standard that employers pay[ ] careful attention to employees' requests for accommodation. Feliberty v. Kemper Corp., 98 F.3d 274, 280 (7th Cir.1996). In addition, claim the plaintiffs, Excel's arbitrary exclusion of an entire class of jobs from the accommodation process (240 nonproduction jobs) violates the ADA. 61 Excel defends its policy and its implementation of the policy. It responds that its method for accommodating employees is an interactive process with those employees, once the employee has requested the accommodation. Its procedures actively foster the interaction: It sets aside temporary light-duty work for recuperating employees, provides detailed information on the physical demands of all jobs, provides meetings with the plant's nursing and ergonomics personnel to discuss the employee's restrictions and possible accommodations, offers a plant tour, automatically bids medically laid-off employees for every production job that opens, and urges employees to call in and discuss the bids. According to Excel, the district court properly held that these procedures more than meet the ADA requirements. 62 In our view, the record does not permit the conclusion that the ADA requirement of a flexible, interactive process that requires both the employer and the disabled employee to investigate cooperatively whether it is possible to accommodate the employee's disability has been fulfilled as a matter of law. See Beck v. University of Wis. Bd. of Regents, 75 F.3d 1130, 1135-36 (7th Cir.1996). A reasonable trier of fact could determine that, once an employee's medical restrictions are determined to be permanent, Excel's methodology--the nurse's evaluation, the employee's meetings with the nurse and others, the plant tour, then layoff--was directive, not interactive. The record is also susceptible to the reading that the breakdown in the process cannot be attributed to the plaintiffs. See Baert v. Euclid Beverage, Ltd., 149 F.3d 626, 633-34 (7th Cir.1998) (concluding that there was a genuine issue as to which party was responsible for the breakdown); Bultemeyer v. Fort Wayne Community Schs., 100 F.3d 1281, 1285-86 (7th Cir.1996) (stating that the party that fails to communicate with the other may break down the process and may be acting in bad faith). There are genuine issues of material fact concerning the lack of interaction in this case that preclude summary judgment. With all the information in the hands of Excel, this was not the kind of interactive process envisioned by our case law.