Opinion ID: 792800
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Mass Marketing Accounts

Text: 9 Mass Marketing accounts (MM accounts) are group insurance discount programs offered to businesses and associations throughout the United States. The employees or association members who purchase insurance policies through MM accounts receive benefits such as discounted policy premiums, automatic deduction of premium payments from paychecks, and a waiver of finance and service charges. MM accounts provide sales representatives with access to employees of participating employers in workplace settings and thereby afford sales representatives exposure to a large volume of potential clients. These MM accounts are desirable to the sales representatives because they provide a good source for potential sales. 10 Tobin says he repeatedly requested to be assigned MM accounts and to be provided with adequate sales support. He maintains that Liberty Mutual's failure to assign him MM accounts was both a denial of a reasonable accommodation and discriminatory pursuant to state and federal law. Tobin argues that but for the failure of Liberty Mutual to assign him MM accounts and to provide adequate sales support, he would have been able to meet the sales quotas set for him. 11 The parties dispute whether assigning Tobin a MM account would have violated Liberty Mutual's policy for assigning such accounts. Liberty Mutual contends that the MM accounts were distributed on the basis of merit — given to those sales representatives who most actively took initiative to land new MM accounts — as well as according to workload. Tobin, however, contends that on at least one occasion Schwitters violated this policy by assigning an MM account to Herb Schneiderman, a sales representative with a substandard sales performance, and that Tobin could have likewise been assigned such accounts despite his below-quota sales. Liberty Mutual responds that Schwitter's assignments were not inconsistent because, unlike Tobin, Schneiderman at least took some initiative to open new MM accounts. Liberty Mutual further argues that, in any event, there is no evidence that Tobin would have been able to handle adequately such an account were it assigned to him or that he would have been able to meet the quotas, even with MM accounts. 12 Tobin now appeals the district court's grant of summary judgment for Liberty Mutual, arguing that the district court erred because (1) Liberty Mutual's explanation for Tobin's termination was pretextual, (2) there was a nexus between his disability and the requested accommodation of assignment of MM accounts, and (3) Liberty Mutual failed to engage in an interactive process to help accommodate Tobin's disability.