Opinion ID: 1332397
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: West Virginia Human Rights Action

Text: The plaintiff filed suit and went to trial against the defendant on her claim under the West Virginia Human Rights Act, W.Va.Code, 5-11-1 et seq., (the Act or the Human Rights Act) and specifically W.Va.Code, 5-11-9 [1992] [8] , which stated in pertinent part: It shall be an unlawful discriminatory practice ... [f]or any employer to discriminate against an individual with respect to compensation, hire, tenure, terms, conditions or privileges of employment if the individual is able and competent to perform the services required even if such individual is blind or handicapped[.] We set forth in Syllabus Point 2 of Skaggs v. Elk Run Coal Co., 198 W.Va. 51, 479 S.E.2d 561 (1996) the elements that a plaintiff must prove in a claim of disability discrimination: To state a claim for breach of the duty of reasonable accommodation under the West Virginia Human Rights Act, W.Va.Code, 5-11-9 (1992), a plaintiff must allege the following elements: (1) The plaintiff is a qualified person with a disability; (2) the employer was aware of the plaintiff's disability; (3) the plaintiff required an accommodation in order to perform the essential functions of a job; (4) a reasonable accommodation existed that met the plaintiff's needs; (5) the employer knew or should have known of the plaintiff's need and of the accommodation; and (6) the employer failed to provide the accommodation. We also stated in Syllabus Point 3 of Skaggs: Under the West Virginia Human Rights Act, W.Va.Code, 5-11-9 (1992), in a disparate treatment discrimination case involving an employee with a disability, an employer may defend against a claim of reasonable accommodation by disputing any of the essential elements of the employee's claim or by proving that making the accommodation imposes an undue hardship on the employer. Undue hardship is an affirmative defense, upon which the employer bears the burden of persuasion. The defendant does not contest that the plaintiff's high-risk pregnancy, complicated by medical conditions, met the legal test of a disability. The defendant also does not contest that it had ample knowledge of the plaintiff's disabling condition. The defendant's defense at trial boiled down to the argument that it was unreasonable for the defendant to be required to hold the plaintiff's job open for her after 6 months had passed. Why did the defendant say at trial that such an accommodation was unreasonable? Because, argued the defendant, the plaintiff failed to communicate with the defendant about the plaintiff's intent to return to work. The defendant contended that it had no idea whenor even whetherthe plaintiff was going to return to work. [9] In other words, the defendant relied at trial on trying to persuade the jury that the cause of the plaintiff's job loss was the plaintiff's failure to make it clear to the defendant that she intended to return to work within a reasonable period of time after her child was born. As the defendant's counsel argued: ... if there had been one phone call ... we wouldn't be here ... if she had done that, we wouldn't be sitting here today. The problem with this defense, however, as the discussion in the footnote shows, is that it was not compellingly supported in the evidence. [10] Therefore, it not surprising that the jury concluded (1) that the defendant's just one phone call explanation/excuse for terminating the plaintiff's job was not a viable defense; and (2) that the termination of the plaintiff's job after 6 months, instead of holding it open for another 3 months, was, in fact and in law, an impermissible failure to reasonably accommodate the plaintiff's medical disability. Upon such a determination, the jury awarded the plaintiff $21,000 in back wages; $21,000 in damages for humiliation and embarrassment, etc.; and $58,000 in punitive damages. [11] The circuit court did not have to address the reinstatement issue, because in the middle of the trial, the defendant offered to reinstate the plaintiff to a chemical technologist joband she accepted the job offer.