Opinion ID: 169783
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Timeliness of Retaliation Claim under the ADA

Text: For Mr. Proctor's retaliation claim under the ADA to be timely, he must have filed an administrative charge within 300 days of the challenged employment action and have filed suit in federal court within ninety days of receiving the agency's right-to-sue letter. See 42 U.S.C. § 12117(a) (incorporating Title VII's enforcement provisions, including administrative filing requirements under 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e)(1), (f)(1)); [3] see also Haynes, 456 F.3d at 1222 (noting a plaintiff must file an administrative charge within 300 days of discriminatory action before filing a civil suit under the ADA). In general, a cause of action accrues `on the date the employee is notified of an adverse employment decision by the employer.' Haynes, 456 F.3d at 1222 (quoting Davidson v. Am. Online, Inc., 337 F.3d 1179, 1187 (10th Cir.2003)). An employee receives notice of an adverse employment decision when a particular event or decision is announced by the employer. Hulsey v. Kmart, Inc., 43 F.3d 555, 557 (10th Cir.1994). The District Court concluded that UPS notified Mr. Proctor of its decision not to return him to work by March 2003. By this time, Mr. Proctor had notice of Dr. Brown's final and binding decision recommending he not return to work as a package car driver and of UPS's decision to deny his request for an accommodation. Although Mr. Proctor filed administrative charges in March 2003 alleging disability discrimination based on UPS's failure to accommodate him, he did not file a civil suit on this basis after receiving right-to-sue letters. Moreover, because the District Court found that Mr. Proctor had notice by March 2003 that he would not be returned to work, it found the administrative charge filed in May 2004 to be untimely and concluded that Mr. Proctor's civil suit based on this charge may be dismissed. To determine whether Mr. Proctor's ADA claim should be dismissed as untimely, we must identify precisely the `unlawful employment practice' of which he complains. Delaware State College v. Ricks, 449 U.S. 250, 257, 101 S.Ct. 498, 66 L.Ed.2d 431 (1980). Although Mr. Proctor purports to challenge his termination, announced in the January 14, 2004 letter, UPS argues that he had previous notice that he would not be returned to work based on Dr. Brown's final and binding decision under the CBA and the company's determination that he was not entitled to an accommodation. Citing the Supreme Court's decision in Ricks, UPS characterizes Mr. Proctor's termination in 2004 as a delayed, but inevitable, consequence of these earlier decisions. Id. at 257-58, 101 S.Ct. 498. In Ricks, the Supreme Court held that the limitations period for filing an administrative complaint began to run when a professor was denied tenure, rather than when his one-year terminal contract ended, because the eventual loss of a teaching position was a delayed, but inevitable, consequence of the denial of tenure. Id. Notably, in Ricks, as well as in the Supreme Court's most recent decision on this issue, Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., ___ U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 2162, 167 L.Ed.2d 982 (2007), the plaintiff did not assert that the employer acted with unlawful intent during the charging period (i.e., within the 300 days prior to the filing of an administrative charge); rather, the plaintiff argued that the challenged action gave effect to discriminatory acts that occurred outside the charging period. See id. at 2167 (rejecting the argument that it is sufficient that discriminatory acts that occurred prior to the charging period had continuing effects during that period); Ricks, 449 U.S. at 257-58, 101 S.Ct. 498 (holding that plaintiff could not rely on a discriminatory act occurring outside the charging period to file a complaint based on a consequence of the time-barred act). Specifically, in Ledbetter, the plaintiff argued that an employment practice committed with no improper purpose and no discriminatory intent is rendered unlawful nonetheless because it gives some effect to an intentional discriminatory act that occurred outside the charging period. 127 S.Ct. at 2172. The Court rejected this argument and held that the plaintiff's claim was untimely. Id. But unlike the plaintiffs in Ledbetter and Ricks, Mr. Proctor claims that UPS acted with unlawful intent during the charging period (i.e., within the 300 days prior to the filing of the administrative complaint upon which his lawsuit is based). He does not argue that his termination was a delayed effect of alleged acts of discrimination occurring outside the charging period. In addition, unlike the Court in Ricks, we cannot conclude that UPS notified Mr. Proctor of his eventual termination prior to the charging period. Cf. Ricks, 449 U.S. at 258, 101 S.Ct. 498 (noting that the plaintiff had received explicit notice that his employment would end after a one-year period). Even if we assume that Mr. Proctor's termination in January 2004 was an inevitable consequence of earlier employment decisions, the record does not support the conclusion that UPS notified Mr. Proctor of this inevitability. The record contains evidence that he was notified of Dr. Brown's decision recommending he not return to work as a package car driver and of UPS's decision to deny his request for an accommodation. The record does not, however, contain evidence that UPS notified Mr. Proctor that these decisions would inevitably lead to his termination. Indeed, in the March 2003 letter denying Mr. Proctor's request for an accommodation, UPS did not notify him that the denial would result in his discharge; instead, UPS instructed him to call the district workforce planning manager with any questions about his employment status. Cf. id. at 258, 101 S.Ct. 498 (holding that the limitations period for filing an administrative charge began to run when the alleged discriminatory act occurred  and [ was ] communicated  to the employee (emphasis added)). In short, the argument that Mr. Proctor's discharge inevitably followed from previous employment decisions is UPS's argument, not Mr. Proctor's, and is therefore properly resolved on the merits. Because Mr. Proctor asserts that UPS acted with retaliatory intent during the charging period and the record does not indicate that he received notice of his eventual discharge prior to this period, we conclude that Mr. Proctor's ADA claim is timely.