Opinion ID: 2824653
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Hill’s Failure-to-Accommodate Claim

Text: Although the district court properly granted summary judgment on Hill’s race discrimination and retaliation claims, summary judgment was improper on her failure-to-accommodate claim. 3 Recall, to establish a prima facie ADA claim, Hill must show that (1) she is disabled, (2) she is a qualified individual, and (3) she was subjected to unlawful discrimination because of her disability. Holly, 492 F.3d at 1255–56. Starting with the second element, the district court held that Hill was not a “qualified individual” within the meaning of the ADA because her essential functions included being exposed to outdoor heat—and, during emergency bus evacuations, the length and intensity of exposure was unpredictable. The School District touts this view on appeal and also argues that Hill is not “disabled” per the first element because her condition is temporary and nonchronic. But Hill’s doctors reported that her breathing woes were both permanent and chronic. The doctors also concluded, after reviewing Hill’s job description, that Hill could perform her job with reasonable accommodation. In this case, the doctors’ 3 In secondary briefing only, the School District argues that Hill’s failure-toaccommodate claim was procedurally barred because Hill never received a right-to-sue notice from the EEOC as to that claim. The School District waived this argument by failing to raise the argument in its initial brief. United States v. Curtis, 380 F.3d 1308, 1310–11 (11th Cir. 2004). 10 Case: 13-14951 Date Filed: 08/07/2015 Page: 11 of 14 statements create a dispute on the first and second elements of Hill’s failure-toaccommodate claim sufficient to survive summary judgment. Moving to the third element, the district court found that the School District offered Hill an air-conditioned bus in October 2009, and that the offer following two months of unpaid leave was a reasonable accommodation. But there is conflicting evidence on whether or not the School District ever actually made an offer to Hill. Although School District employees submitted sworn affidavits attesting to an October 2009 offer, none of them claimed to have made the offer themselves. Nor did they identify the employee who made the offer or provide any details about its circumstances. In her own testimony, by contrast, Hill denied ever being told that the School District had obtained more air-conditioned buses, whether in the context of an offer or otherwise. She recalled a conversation with Wendy Perry in October 2009, but did not recollect that it included an offer of an air-conditioned bus. And Perry, absent in this case, has not provided testimony or an affidavit to the contrary. In sum, there is a dispute as to whether or not the School District offered Hill an air-conditioned bus in October 2009. Even assuming the School District did make such an offer, there is still a dispute as to whether making Hill wait two months was reasonable. In its motion for summary judgment, the School District argued that providing an airconditioned bus any earlier would have constituted an undue hardship, but does not 11 Case: 13-14951 Date Filed: 08/07/2015 Page: 12 of 14 provide sufficient evidence of what the hardship would be. All the School District said was that it would have had to upset its seniority-sensitive bus-allocation process. But courts presented with sparse assertions that upsetting an equipmentallocation process would constitute undue hardship have denied summary judgment. See Gribben v. United Parcel Serv., Inc., No. CV-04-2814PHXFJM, 2009 WL 648509, at  (D. Ariz. Mar. 12, 2009); Nuetzman v. Con-Way Transp. Servs., Inc., No. CIV. 06-2730 PAM/JSM, 2007 WL 2908112, at  (D. Minn. Oct. 1, 2007). Moreover, Hill was previously assigned an air-conditioned bus, so it is difficult to understand how reassignment would upset the bus-allocation process in such a way as to cause undue hardship. See Gribben, 2009 WL 648509, at  (denying summary judgment in part because employer’s previous provision of an air-conditioned vehicle indicated a dispute as to whether providing one again would require a change in fundamental business practices and thereby constitute an undue hardship). The district court cited three cases for the proposition that placing Hill on unpaid leave for two months was reasonable, but all of these decisions are distinguishable because the plaintiff continued working (presumably for pay) in each. See Terrell v. USAir, 132 F.3d 621, 628 (11th Cir. 1998) (three-month delay in providing accommodations was reasonable when plaintiff could continue to work and had “some access” to requested accommodations); Hartsfield v. Miami- 12 Case: 13-14951 Date Filed: 08/07/2015 Page: 13 of 14 Dade Cnty., 90 F. Supp. 2d 1363, 1371–73 (S.D. Fla. 2000) (ten-month delay in providing accommodation was reasonable when interim accommodations allowed the plaintiff to continue work); Ungerleider v. Fleet Mortgage Grp. Of Fleet Bank, 329 F. Supp. 2d 343, 354–55 (D. Conn. 2004) (one-and-a-half-month delay was reasonable where plaintiff could continue work at a home office). By contrast, Hill was placed on unpaid leave, an accommodation that did not allow her to continue to work or, of course, to be paid. And a final case cited by the School District, Kintz v. United Parcel Serv., Inc., 766 F. Supp. 2d 1245, 1256-57 (M.D. Ala. 2011), is distinguishable on grounds that the unpaid leave in that case lasted a mere fifteen days—a period of time short enough that it can be attributed to simple administrative reality. Here, by contrast, two months was more than enough time for the School District to overcome any administrative hurdles in providing Hill with an air-conditioned bus. Because these cases are distinguishable, they do not change our conclusion that there is a dispute as to whether a two-month period of unpaid leave is reasonable.