Opinion ID: 6340579
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: FEPA Disability Discrimination

Text: ¶ 15. Plaintiff argues the trial court erred in granting summary judgment to defendant on her two allegations of disability discrimination: August 2015 and May 2016. We agree with the trial court that plaintiff failed to make a prima facie showing of disability discrimination for either allegation. ¶ 16. To prevail on a claim of disability discrimination under the FEPA, plaintiff must establish she was a “qualified individual with a disability” and that she was discharged because of her disability. State v. G.S. Blodgett Co., 163 Vt. 175, 180, 656 A.2d 984, 988 (1995); 21 V.S.A. § 495(a)(1) (prohibiting employers from discriminating “against a qualified individual with a disability”). The FEPA defines a “[q]ualified individual with a disability” as a person “with a disability who is capable of performing the essential functions of the job . . . with reasonable accommodation to the disability.” 21 V.S.A. § 495d(6). The disability-discrimination provisions 6 under the FEPA are patterned after the federal Rehabilitation Act, which in turn incorporates standards from the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), so we look to federal case law to guide our interpretation, the allocations of burdens, and standards of proof. G.S. Blodgett, 163 Vt. at 180, 656 A.2d at 988; see 29 U.S.C. § 794(d) (incorporating ADA standards into Rehabilitation Act). Thus, plaintiff can establish a prima facie case by showing that (1) she was an individual who has a disability within the meaning of the statute; (2) defendant had notice of her disability; (3) with reasonable accommodations, she could have performed the essential functions of the position; and (4) defendant refused to make such accommodations. Stone v. City of Mount Vernon, 118 F.3d 92, 96-97 (2d Cir. 1997) (describing prima facie case of discrimination under Rehabilitation Act and ADA). Once plaintiff makes out a prima facie case, the burden shifts to the employer to show that any reasonable accommodation would have been impossible, would have substantially altered the nature of the job, or would have been unduly burdensome. G.S. Blodgett, 163 Vt. at 181-82, 656 A.2d at 989.
¶ 17. Plaintiff alleged that defendant failed to reasonably accommodate her disability in violation of the FEPA when she initially returned to work after medical leave in August 2015 because defendant reinstated her as a molder, even though defendant knew that this job required physical tasks exceeding her limitations. The trial court rejected her August 2015 claim, finding that the undisputed facts showed that plaintiff failed to request a reasonable accommodation and that no need for accommodation was apparent from the circumstances of plaintiff’s return to work. Plaintiff contends the trial court erred because a reasonable jury could have inferred that defendant was on notice that some accommodation was necessary. ¶ 18. Notice is an indispensable element of a plaintiff’s prima facie disabilitydiscrimination claim. “Generally, it is the responsibility of the individual with a disability to inform the employer that an accommodation is needed.” Brady v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 531 F.3d 7 127, 135 (2d Cir. 2008) (quotation, alteration, and emphasis omitted). We do “not require any formal mechanism or magic words to notify an employer” that an accommodation is needed. Colwell v. Rite Aid Corp., 602 F.3d 495, 506-07 (3d Cir. 2010) (quotation omitted). However, “[t]he employer must have enough information to know of both the disability and desire for an accommodation, or circumstances must at least be sufficient to cause a reasonable employer to make appropriate inquiries about the possible need for an accommodation.” Id. (quotations omitted). The duty to provide a reasonable accommodation is also triggered when an employer has independent knowledge of an employee’s disability, or when the disability is obvious and the potential need for an accommodation is apparent. Brady, 531 F.3d at 135. ¶ 19. To be clear, it is not enough that the employer merely knows that a plaintiff is disabled. The duty to provide a reasonable accommodation applies to the limitations caused by the disability, not the disability itself. See Gammage v. W. Jasper Sch. Bd. of Educ., 179 F.3d 952, 955 (5th Cir. 1999) (“[T]he ADA does not require an employer to assume that an employee with a disability suffers from a limitation; as a result, it is incumbent upon the ADA plaintiff to assert not only a disability, but also any limitation resulting therefrom.”); see also Adams v. Rice, 531 F.3d 936, 944 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (“[W]hen an employee seeks a workplace accommodation, the accommodation must be related to the limitation that rendered the person disabled.” (quotation omitted)). Thus, if a plaintiff’s summary-judgment proffer fails to establish at least an inference that her employer knew or should have known that she needed a reasonable accommodation, she cannot make out a prima facie case and the employer is entitled to summary judgment. ¶ 20. Here, the undisputed facts show that plaintiff notified defendant of her knee injury upon returning to work in August 2015 by presenting a doctor’s note to her human resources manager with no further explanation or request for accommodation. Plaintiff contends that defendant knew this job included physical requirements exceeding her prescribed limitations, 8 namely, operating a Press 30 machine that required lifting between thirty-three and thirty-five pounds “continuously” despite a medical restriction that she lift such weights only “frequently.” ¶ 21. Her argument is not supported by the record. The doctor’s note stated that plaintiff could lift and carry twenty-one to fifty pounds “frequently.” The note defined “frequently” as constituting “34%–66% of a workday” and “continuously” as being “67%–100%” of a workday. Although plaintiff characterized the Press 30 machine as requiring an ability to lift thirty-three to thirty-five pounds “continuously,” she cited exhibits and an affidavit which demonstrate that operating this machine demanded lifting totes weighing thirty-three to thirty-five pounds onto pallets every four-and-a-half minutes during an eight-hour shift, if an employee operates this machine throughout their entire shift. See Robertson, 2004 VT 15, ¶ 15 (“[W]e will accept as true the allegations made in opposition to the motion for summary judgment, so long as they are supported by affidavits or other evidentiary material.”). ¶ 22. Plaintiff argues there was no evidence indicating how long she was required to hold each tote when she loaded it onto a pallet, and she is entitled to the inference that she lifted these totes for such duration and with such frequency as to constitute continuous lifting. Such an inference is not reasonable. See id. (“[T]he nonmoving party receives the benefit of all reasonable doubts and inferences.” (emphasis added)). Even assuming molders sometimes had to operate the Press 30 machine for most or all of a shift—a fact that plaintiff did not establish—to find that plaintiff was lifting these totes for at least 67% of her workday, a jury would need to speculate that when she lifted each tote at four-and-a-half-minute intervals she then had to hold or carry that tote for multiple minutes before loading it onto a pallet. Nothing in the evidence suggested that pallets were located a great distance away from the machine or that any other circumstances necessitated holding totes for an extended period of time. ¶ 23. Neither the molder job description nor any evidence cited by plaintiff suggested that the molder position demanded physical tasks beyond the restrictions stated in plaintiff’s 9 doctor’s note. Accordingly, defendant was not on notice that plaintiff might need any accommodation for the molder position, and defendant was entitled to summary judgment on plaintiff’s FEPA claim for August 2015.
¶ 24. Plaintiff also asserts that she created a triable issue of fact as to whether defendant failed to reasonably accommodate her when it did not assign her to a light-duty position after she returned from medical leave with prescribed limitations in May 2016. It was undisputed that plaintiff could not perform the essential functions of the finisher position when she returned to work in 2016, and that she requested that defendant accommodate her by assigning her to “trim rings,” a light-duty task. It was also undisputed that plaintiff could have, consistent with her medical limitations in May 2016, performed light-duty tasks such as trimming rings. Plaintiff argues that defendant had an obligation to accommodate her by assigning her to an existing, vacant light-duty position. She challenges the trial court’s conclusion that she did not present admissible evidence that such a position existed at the time she requested reassignment and therefore failed to establish a prima facie case. ¶ 25. Federal disability-discrimination cases establish that reassignment to an existing, vacant position may be a reasonable accommodation. This case law is based on the definition of “reasonable accommodation” under the ADA and Rehabilitation Act, which expressly includes “reassignment to a vacant position.” 42 U.S.C. § 12111(9)(B). A plaintiff requesting a reassignment accommodation must demonstrate that there existed a vacant position for which she was qualified “at or around the time when accommodation was sought.” McBride v. BIC Consumer Prods. Mfg. Co., 583 F.3d 92, 97-98 (2d Cir. 2009). Typically, a position is considered “vacant,” for purposes of this reassignment-accommodation analysis, when a similarly situated, nondisabled employee would be able to apply for that position. Duvall v. Georgia-Pacific Consumer Prods. L.P., 607 F.3d 1255, 1263 (10th Cir. 2010). “[A]n employer need not reassign 10 an employee if no position is vacant. Nor is the employer obliged to create a new position to accommodate the employee.” Norville v. Staten Island Univ. Hosp., 196 F.3d 89, 99 (2d Cir. 1999) (citation omitted). ¶ 26. As a threshold matter, it is unclear whether reassignment to an existing, vacant position constitutes a reasonable accommodation under the FEPA. Although the definition of “reasonable accommodation” for the federal ADA and Rehabilitation Act expressly includes “reassignment to a vacant position,” FEPA’s definition of the term includes no similar language. Compare 42 U.S.C. § 12111(9)(B) with 21 V.S.A. § 495d(12)(B). We need not decide whether reassignment may be a reasonable accommodation under the FEPA because, even if it may, we conclude that there was no evidence of an existing, vacant, light-duty position at the time plaintiff sought one. ¶ 27. Plaintiff argues she established at least an inference that a light-duty position existed. First, plaintiff asserts that when her manager, Kevin Peets, denied her request for a position trimming rings, he mentioned only one reason: that she was seeking accommodation for a non-work-related injury. She contends a jury could reasonably infer that defendant actually had an existing, vacant position dedicated to trimming rings because if it did not, Mr. Peets would have said so. This inference by omission would be pure speculation. Plaintiff’s argument ignores her affirmative duty, as the party with the burden of persuasion at trial, to put forth evidence from which a jury can reasonably infer the probable truth of her interpretation of events to the exclusion of other plausible explanations. See Boyd v. State, 2022 VT 12, ¶ 19, __ Vt. __, __ A.3d __ (“Where the moving party does not bear the burden of persuasion at trial, it may satisfy its burden of production by showing the court that there is an absence of evidence in the record to support the nonmoving party’s case. The nonmoving party must then show that there are material facts in dispute. Evidence which merely makes it possible for the fact in issue to be as alleged, or which 11 raises a mere conjecture, surmise or suspicion is an insufficient foundation for a verdict.” (quotations and citation omitted)). ¶ 28. Second, plaintiff asserts that manager Peets testified at his deposition that the molding and finishing departments where plaintiff worked always had light-duty jobs available and that there were too many to count. This mischaracterization conflates “jobs” with “tasks” and “assignments.” Manager Peets testified that “employees got light-duty work assignments during [his] tenure” and went on to list “putting labels on parts” and “trimming rings” as two examples of “tasks [that] an employee [would] be performing if they had light duty in the molding or finishing departments,” but he stated he could not describe all examples of such tasks because they were “too numerous.” Manager Peets testified further that trimming rings and putting labels on parts are only one “very small piece of the entire job” of a finisher or molder. Plaintiff contends that jobs trimming rings became vacant at the beginning and end of each shift, and thus a lightduty job was existing and vacant during May 2016 when she requested one. This confusing formulation again conflates jobs with tasks. Both plaintiff and manager Peets testified that trimming rings and similar light-duty assignments were merely one part of the numerous tasks— including both light duty and more physically demanding work—performed by employees in the molding and finishing departments. There is no suggestion in manager Peets’s testimony that such light-duty tasks existed as standalone full-time positions. Plaintiff failed to establish a triable issue of fact regarding the existence of a vacant light-duty position around the time she returned to work in May 2016. ¶ 29. In a similar vein, plaintiff contends defendant should have accommodated her by creating a new job composed solely of light-duty tasks because defendant had a policy or practice of creating light-duty jobs for injured employees. She relies on a subset of reassignmentaccommodation cases, chiefly Severson v. Heartland Woodcraft, Inc., 872 F.3d 476 (7th Cir. 2017). Severson recognized the settled principle that “an employer is not required to create a new 12 job or strip a current job of its principal duties to accommodate a disabled employee.” Id. at 482 (quotation omitted). But Severson also held that “if an employer has a policy of creating lightduty positions for employees who are occupationally injured, then that same benefit ordinarily must be extended to an employee with a disability who is not occupationally injured unless the company can show undue hardship.” Id. If such a policy exists, these potential jobs must be considered in addition to any existing, vacant positions to determine whether reassignment may be a reasonable accommodation. We need not decide whether this line of cases applies to the FEPA because we conclude that plaintiff failed to establish a reasonable inference that defendant had such a policy. ¶ 30. Although plaintiff’s arguments are not clear, she appears to assert that defendant’s written policies, unwritten policies, or practices entitled her to a light-duty position. Defendant’s employee handbook stated that defendant “may provide, when available, transitional duty assignments for employees who are receiving workers compensation benefits and who are able to work, but not able to perform the essential duties of their position.” The policy clarified that “[t]ransitional duty assignments are not permanently assigned positions” and “[a]n employee may not be placed in a transitional duty assignment for more than a total of twelve (12) weeks for any work-related injury or illness unless otherwise approved.” The trial court found that this policy did not apply to plaintiff because she was not receiving workers’ compensation at the time she sought reassignment in May 2016. Plaintiff argues this finding was erroneous because there was a dispute of fact as to whether or not plaintiff was injured at work and thus entitled to workers’ compensation benefits. ¶ 31. We agree with the trial court. Under the plain language of the policy, it covered only employees currently receiving workers’ compensation benefits, not employees potentially eligible for them. Plaintiff omits the fact that she had not yet applied for workers’ compensation at the time she requested a light-duty accommodation. Moreover, plaintiff submitted no evidence 13 regarding how defendant had applied this policy to others. Thus there was no reasonable basis for a jury to infer that defendant could or should have applied this policy to plaintiff. Regardless of where plaintiff was injured and whether she may have been eligible for workers’ compensation, this policy did not satisfy plaintiff’s burden, under federal case law, to demonstrate an existing, vacant position to which she could have been reassigned because the policy was discretionary and strictly temporary in nature. See Severson, 872 F.3d. at 483 (concluding that discretionary, infrequent, and temporary light-duty assignments did not constitute a policy of providing lightduty positions to injured employees and noting that “[i]f an employer bends over backwards to accommodate a disabled worker, it must not be punished for its generosity” (quotation and alterations omitted)). ¶ 32. Plaintiff argues that the affidavit of a co-employee, Mr. Suydam, independently created a dispute of fact whether defendant had light-duty positions available or an unwritten policy of creating such positions for injured employees. The affidavit plaintiff relies on is an amended version. The previous affidavit stated in relevant part: According to the paperwork, I have seen the same people trim rings for a year. Trimming rings is so much easier than running a press. One person I saw trim rings all the time, Terri Connor, on third shift, who has had major medical problems, did not seem to be able to do other jobs. I think Terri gave up being a quality auditor because she could not walk around a lot. The amended affidavit clarified: I based my statement [quoted above], that I have seen the same people trim rings, in other words this would be their sole job, for a year straight, on what I have seen with my own eyes before and after [plaintiff] was terminated in May 2016. ¶ 33. Neither version of the affidavit provided context to support this statement, which was contradicted by essentially all the other summary-judgment exhibits for both parties, including other parts of Mr. Suydam’s own affidavit. The “paperwork” that Mr. Suydam mentioned consisted of a handful of pages of sign-in and audit sheets, attached to his affidavit, that Mr. 14 Suydam claimed he found on a table near the “ring trimming station.” Mr. Suydam explained that these pages list employee initials next to numbers of rings trimmed, but there were not more than a few consecutive dates shown for any particular initials. Accordingly, for the statement that employees solely trimmed rings for over a year to have created a triable issue of fact, it would have needed to be sufficiently clear and detailed such that a reasonable jury could have inferred from this sentence alone that defendant had a policy of creating permanent or long-term positions dedicated solely to trimming rings. ¶ 34. The affidavit was simply too vague. Mr. Suydam did not explain how many employees he witnessed trimming rings as their sole job. The use of the plural “people” suggested more than one, but the actual number was conjectural. Moreover, there was no basis to infer why these people were solely trimming rings, i.e., whether they were injured and being accommodated, they were working in pre-existing positions dedicated to trimming rings, or some other explanation. The prior version of the affidavit mentioned one person who trimmed rings “all the time” and had “major medical problems,” but Mr. Suydam made no connection between this person’s medical issues and any alleged policy of creating light-duty jobs for disabled employees. ¶ 35. Even if one could infer that defendant was accommodating these employees’ disabilities, Mr. Suydam’s statement provided no basis for determining whether the circumstances of accommodation were similar to plaintiff’s circumstances such that plaintiff would naturally be covered by this pattern of accommodation—for example, whether these employees had definite recovery timelines or were permanently disabled. Because plaintiff provided no timeline for her recovery to defendant when she returned in May 2016, even under the generous framework of Severson she had to demonstrate that defendant had a policy of creating indefinite light-duty jobs for injured employees with uncertain recovery timelines or permanent disabilities. See Severson, 872 F.3d. at 479, 483 (holding that no applicable policy of creating light-duty jobs existed where plaintiff’s recovery timeline was two months and evidence showed light-duty assignments 15 “generally lasted no longer than two days”); see also Dalton v. Subaru–Isuzu Auto., Inc., 141 F.3d 667, 680 (7th Cir. 1998) (holding automobile manufacturer not required to accommodate permanently disabled employees via assignment to program that consisted of light-duty positions set aside for temporarily disabled employees); accord Howell v. Michelin Tire Corp., 860 F. Supp. 1488, 1492 (M.D. Ala. 1994); King v. Town of Walkill, 302 F. Supp. 2d 279, 291 (S.D.N.Y. 2004); cf. Price v. City of New York, 264 F. App’x 66, 68-69 (2d Cir. 2008) (reversing summary judgment for police department where official policy required all full-time officers to be able to perform patrol duties but permanently disabled plaintiff identified six other permanently disabled officers whom police department allowed to remain employed, creating inference that patrolling was not essential function of position). Mr. Suydam’s affidavit provided no support for such an inference. While plaintiff suggests that evidence of people solely trimming rings for over one year dovetails with her own recovery timeline of just over a year, this similarity is meaningful only in hindsight. The relevant time was May 2016, when plaintiff requested a light-duty position—not May 2017, a year after the alleged violation occurred and when she happened to fully recover. In May 2016, defendant had no way of knowing how long plaintiff would be disabled, and thus would have had to create a light-duty job of indefinite duration. There is no evidence that defendant ever created such a position, let alone that it had a policy of doing so. Thus, assuming for the sake of argument that reassignment pursuant to a policy of creating light-duty positions was a recognized accommodation under the FEPA, plaintiff failed to establish evidence of any such policy that may have applied to her. ¶ 36. Plaintiff additionally argues that the trial court misapplied the “sham affidavit” rule when it decided that Mr. Suydam’s affidavit could not preclude summary judgment because it conflicted with plaintiff’s previous deposition testimony. This contention is moot given our conclusion that Mr. Suydam’s affidavit was insufficient at face value. We note, however, that the document was impotent for a different reason, which provides an alternative ground for affirming 16 the lack of any genuine dispute of material fact on this issue. See, e.g., Ross v. Times Mirror, Inc., 164 Vt. 13, 19, 665 A.2d 580, 583 (1995) (affirming summary judgment on different grounds than trial court). The affidavit does not clearly demonstrate that the ring-trimming statement was based on Mr. Suydam’s personal knowledge. See V.R.C.P. 56(c) (“An affidavit used to support or oppose a motion must be made on personal knowledge . . . .”). The latest affidavit clarified that Mr. Suydam knew employees solely trimmed rings for a year straight because he saw this “with [his] own eyes,” whereas his previous affidavit based this statement on “the paperwork.” Even taking these two versions of the affidavit together, Mr. Suydam did not explain how he could have known that other employees solely trimmed rings for a year straight. He asserted that he witnessed employees trimming rings when he trimmed them himself or inspected them. He cited to sign-in sheets attached to his affidavit where he initialed next to dates when he trimmed or inspected rings, but these comprised a mere handful of days. Mr. Suydam further stated that he walked by the ringtrimming table at least once per day. These scant opportunities for observation leave enormous gaps of time in his purported knowledge. Nowhere does Mr. Suydam explain how he could have personally witnessed employees trimming rings for entire consecutive shifts spanning one year— for instance, that he could see the ring-trimming table from his own station at all times. Mr. Suydam’s conclusory statement, though sworn, was not apparently supported by personal knowledge, and thus could not have created a triable issue of fact. See Vt. Dep’t of Soc. Welfare v. Berlin Dev. Assocs., 138 Vt. 60, 62, 411 A.2d 1353, 1355 (1980) (per curiam) (holding affidavit insufficient to support motion for summary judgment because affidavit “read as a whole, does not reveal that the statements it contains were made on personal knowledge”). ¶ 37. Finally, plaintiff contends that the trial court erred in concluding that light duty was not a reasonable accommodation because it did not fulfill the essential functions of her previous job as a finisher. She cites to federal cases establishing that for purposes of considering a request for reassignment, courts should analyze the essential functions of the job plaintiff sought, rather 17 than plaintiff’s current or last position. The trial court did ultimately consider plaintiff’s qualification for a hypothetical light-duty position following plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration, so this claim of error is misplaced. In any event, we need not decide how this distinction between the current job and the job sought bears on the FEPA because, as explained above, plaintiff failed to create a triable issue of fact as to the existence of a light-duty position or a policy of creating such positions. Because plaintiff could not perform the essential functions of her current job as a finisher and the new job she sought did not exist, she failed to establish that she was a “[q]ualified individual with a disability.” See 21 V.S.A. § 495d(6) (defining “[q]ualified individual with a disability” as person “with a disability who is capable of performing the essential functions of the job . . . with reasonable accommodation to the disability”). Accordingly, defendant was entitled to summary judgment on plaintiff’s FEPA discrimination claim for May 2016.