Opinion ID: 2633435
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Cot

Text: In November 1988, while she was already working out of the Sacramento office, Richards, acting on her doctor's advice, asked Carol Uhouse, the regional administrative manager responsible for facilities in the Sacramento office, to purchase a bed so that she could rest during her breaks and at lunchtime. Instead of purchasing a bed, the company purchased a folding army cot. Uhouse insisted that Richards help pay for items such as a mattress and sheets, while the company paid for blankets and a pillow. Uhouse vetoed Richards's request that the cot be placed in any of several vacant offices, believing that the cot would be visible to, and look unprofessional to, clients and other visitors. Uhouse suggested that the cot be placed in an unheated and uncooled storage area known as the black hole. Richards vetoed that suggestion. Following Richards's return from her leave of absence in January 1990, the cot was set up in a drafting room next to Richards's office. However, Uhouse would periodically move the cot without notice when the space was needed for other purposes. This scenario continued until the spring or summer of 1990, when Richards's department manager, Loren Bottorff, moved the cot to a vacant office next to a new office into which Richards had recently moved. Richards considered the new location unsatisfactory, primarily because the room had a pole in the middle that prevented her from closing the door if her wheelchair was in the room, although Bottorff testified Richards had made no complaint to him about the cot's new location. In any case, from that point forward, Richards dropped the cot issue and would go home whenever she needed to rest.