Opinion ID: 200559
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Blockel's Prima Facie Case

Text: 29 J.C. Penney contends that Blockel failed to make out her prima facie case in multiple respects. The company argues that Blockel failed to prove: first, that she was a qualified handicapped person under the Massachusetts statute; second, that her impairments constituted a disability; and third, that J.C. Penney refused to accommodate her. 30
31 Blockel argues preliminarily that J.C. Penney has waived all arguments regarding the sufficiency of the evidence because its initial motion for judgment as a matter of law, brought pursuant to Rule 50(a) at the close of evidence, was not made with sufficient specificity. We note, however, that J.C. Penney's Rule 50(a) motion was cut short by the judge's pronouncement that the motion was considered filed and denied. 2 Although generally it is incumbent upon a party to enunciate the specific basis for a motion for judgment as a matter of law, see Fed.R.Civ.P. 50(a)(2), here, the district court foreclosed J.C. Penney's opportunity to make its arguments with any specificity. Under these circumstances J.C. Penney cannot be faulted for failing to provide more detail. See, e.g., Wilson Sporting Goods v. David Geoffrey & Assocs., 904 F.2d 677, 683 (Fed.Cir.1990)(stating that [i]t would be unfair to require counsel to have developed a statement of evidentiary shortcomings which the magistrate obviously did not want to hear), overruled in part on other grounds by Cardinal Chem. Co. v. Morton Int'l, 508 U.S. 83, 113 S.Ct. 1967, 124 L.Ed.2d 1 (1993). 32 But Blockel's second waiver argument holds more force. Blockel contends that in its subsequent Rule 50(b) motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict J.C. Penney enunciated only the first of the three particular sufficiency arguments it makes on appeal. 33 In its Rule 50(b) motion, J.C. Penney did contend that Blockel had not made out a prima facie case. Specifically, however, it argued only that Blockel failed to prove her status as a qualified handicapped person. J.C. Penney did not make the arguments that Blockel failed to prove that she had a disability or that J.C. Penney refused to accommodate her. As we have said many times before, unless an issue is raised squarely before the district court, it can be reviewed only for plain error. See, e.g., In re Rauh, 119 F.3d 46, 51 n. 7 (1st Cir.1997) (We consider arguments raised for the first time on appeal only in exceptional circumstances threatening a `clear miscarriage of justice.') (quoting Playboy Enters., Inc. v. Public Serv. Comm'n of Puerto Rico, 906 F.2d 25, 40 (1st Cir.1990)). We find no such error here. 34 J.C. Penney contends that raising the overarching issue of whether Blockel had made out her prima facie case was sufficient to preserve its arguments on each aspect of Blockel's prima facie case. Our precedent, however, indicates that more specificity is required. In Pstragowski v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., 553 F.2d 1 (1st Cir.1997), we stated that a party who moved for a directed verdict may obtain appellate review only on the specific ground stated in the motion. Id. at 3; see also Lynch v. City of Boston, 180 F.3d 1, 13 (1st Cir.1999) (stating that the rule requires that grounds for a motion must be stated with sufficient certainty to apprise the court and opposing counsel of the movant's position (internal citation omitted)). Further, on the venerable principle of expressio unius est exclusio alterius, J.C. Penney's inclusion of one particular argument regarding Blockel's prima facie case indicated to both Blockel and the court that this was the sum total of its arguments on this front. We therefore consider only whether Blockel met her burden of showing her status as a protected handicapped employee. 35
36 The Massachusetts anti-discrimination statute defines a qualified handicapped person as a handicapped person who is capable of performing the essential functions of a particular job, or who would be capable of performing the essential functions of a particular job with reasonable accommodation to his handicap. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 151B, § 1(16). J.C. Penney claims that Blockel was not a qualified handicapped person because she did not prove that she was able to perform the essential functions of her job from October through December 1997. J.C. Penney's argument rests on Blockel's testimony that she could not do the job of merchandise manager in forty hours a week. Specifically, she testified: 37 Q. And what I'm curious about is are you saying that by restricting your hours to only 40 hours a week you could not do the essential functions of your job as a merchandiser? 38 A. That's right. 39 J.C. Penney relies primarily upon August v. Offices Unlimited, Inc., 981 F.2d 576 (1st Cir.1992). In August, when the record was fatally bereft of indication that the disabled plaintiff could perform his job even with an accommodation, this court affirmed summary judgment for the employer on the plaintiff's employment discrimination claims. See id. at 581-82. 40 Here, Blockel presented other evidence sufficient to allow the jury to conclude that working more than forty hours per week was not an essential function of Blockel's position. For example, Rainero testified that senior merchandise managers were not required to work more than forty hours a week. In addition, a senior merchandise manager testified that it would be possible for managers to perform their duties, even during the holiday season, within a forty hour schedule. Blockel also presented evidence of her past superior performance despite hourly work restrictions. 41 Even assuming that Blockel understood the question and taking her response that she could not perform the job in forty hours at face value, in light of the countervailing evidence, the sum of the evidence was not so strongly and overwhelmingly inconsistent with the jury verdict, Rodowicz, 279 F.3d at 41-42 (internal citations omitted), that the verdict must be overturned. 42 Here, Blockel asserted that she was a qualified individual at the time that she asked for the forty hour week accommodation. In contrast with the facts of August, all of Blockel's disability insurance and benefit claim forms report total disability as beginning later, in January 1998 — after her requests for accommodation were denied. Thus, the jury had sufficient support to deem Blockel a qualified individual with a handicap.