Opinion ID: 2744918
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: rabb’s reasonable accommodation claim

Text: Rabb contends that allowing her to work part-time was a reasonable accommodation. As evidence, Rabb points to the fact that she worked as a parttime tutor at Winegard for over two years after her third stroke. The problem for Rabb is that it is undisputed this part-time tutoring position was created solely for her benefit while she rehabilitated, was not considered permanent, and had to be eliminated for the 2011 – 2012 school year due to budget 3 Rabb explained that with aphasia, she knew what she wanted to say, but could not always verbalize her thoughts correctly and had to take time to find the right words. As a result, Rabb said that she risked losing her students’ attention or conveying the incorrect information. To properly present a lesson to a full class, Rabb would have had to do more preparatory work, practicing the words ahead of time. Rabb agreed that she did not have the energy to do this for all the subjects a full-time teacher would have to teach each day. 6 Case: 14-11287 Date Filed: 10/23/2014 Page: 7 of 10 constraints. Specifically, in the 2009 – 2010 school year, Rabb, on the advice of her doctor, began volunteering at Winegard, doing part-time administrative work. During this time, Winegard’s then-principal, Dr. Ella Thompson, learned that Rabb was experiencing financial hardship and tried to find paid work for her. Dr. Thompson was able to use a portion of some Title I funds Winegard received that school year from the federal government to pay Rabb to tutor students on a parttime basis as an Instructional Resource Teacher. In this position, Rabb worked about four hours a day, three days a week, tutoring small groups of students in preparation for test assessments. Each tutoring session lasted twenty to thirty minutes, with breaks in between sessions. Ordinarily, Winegard’s Instructional Resource Teachers were full-time positions that involved numerous duties, not the limited, small-group tutoring Rabb performed. Further, Winegard historically used tutors from temporary employment services to perform that kind of tutoring. Indeed, while Rabb worked at Winegard, there were no other part-time teachers at all. Dr. Thompson explained that she hoped Rabb would recover with rehabilitation and return to fulltime teaching and never promised Rabb that the part-time tutoring position would be permanent. Rabb continued in this part-time position for the 2010 – 2011 school year, during which Dr. Jhunu Mohopatra became Winegard’s principal. Dr. Mohopatra 7 Case: 14-11287 Date Filed: 10/23/2014 Page: 8 of 10 explained that Dr. Thompson’s school budget, which had funded Rabb’s position, resulted in an overfunding to Winegard in excess of $300,000. In preparing the new budget for the 2011 – 2012 school year, Dr. Mohopatra had to repay the overfunding to the school district and to staff the school in compliance with statemandated class-size requirements. As a result, Dr. Mohopatra could not fund Rabb’s part-time tutoring position because it did not impact class size. 4 Dr. Mohopatra explained the situation to Rabb and offered her a full-time fifth grade teaching position with a class of advanced students that would present less academic and disciplinary challenges. As an alternative, Dr. Mohopatra offered Rabb the option to have her name placed on a list for reassignment to another school that might have an available part-time teaching position. Rabb’s doctor then advised Winegard that, while working at Winegard had been therapeutic for Rabb, transferring her to another school where people did not know her or respect her condition was “ill-advised medically.” 5 4 In the district court, Rabb did not present any evidence to dispute Dr. Mohopatra’s explanation that she eliminated Rabb’s part-time tutoring position due to budget constraints. Rather, citing the school district’s website, Rabb argued that because the School Board’s general fund budget increased by $80,000 for the 2011 – 2012 school year, a reasonable inference could be drawn that budget concerns “may not have been the reason for Defendant’s failure to make reasonable accommodations . . . .” This general fund budget information does not address, much less dispute, Dr. Mohopatra’s testimony that Winegard had to repay an overfunding to the School Board and that she eliminated Rabb’s position in an effort to balance Winegard’s own budget and, more importantly, does not create a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Winegard had an available, part-time teaching position in the 2010 – 2011 school year. 5 The School Board’s ADA coordinator and Rabb’s union representative discussed finding another position for Rabb within her doctor’s restrictions, but no position was found. Rabb 8 Case: 14-11287 Date Filed: 10/23/2014 Page: 9 of 10 In other words, the only accommodation Rabb identified was a part-time teaching position at Winegard, yet she failed to present any evidence that a parttime teaching position was available at Winegard. Indeed, it is undisputed that Winegard generally did not employ part-time teachers. Under this circuit’s precedent, a part-time position that does not exist is not a “reasonable” accommodation because the ADA imposes no duty on the employer to create a part-time position to accommodate an employee’s disability. See Terrell, 132 F.3d at 626-27 (concluding that a requested part-time position was not a reasonable accommodation where the employer already had eliminated all part-time positions). Furthermore, the fact that Winegard specially created (and was able to fund for two years) a part-time tutoring position for Rabb in the hope that she would recover enough to be able to return to full-time teaching does not prove that Rabb’s requested accommodation was reasonable. “Prior accommodations do not make an accommodation reasonable.” Wood v. Green, 323 F.3d 1309, 1314 (11th Cir. 2003) (concluding that a request for an indefinite leave of absence to recover from cluster headaches was not a reasonable accommodation although employer had ultimately resigned her position to seek disability benefits. To the extent Rabb contends her employer failed to engage in an interactive process with her to identify other potential accommodations, we have concluded that “where a plaintiff cannot demonstrate ‘reasonable accommodation,’ the employer’s lack of investigation into reasonable accommodation is unimportant.” Willis, 108 F.3d at 285. Because Rabb failed to meet her burden to show that a reasonable accommodation could have been made, we do not address the School Board’s efforts to find some other accommodation. See Lucas, 257 F.3d at 1256 n.2. 9 Case: 14-11287 Date Filed: 10/23/2014 Page: 10 of 10 previously granted such requests). As we have explained, “[a]n employer that bends over backwards to accommodate a disabled worker . . . must not be punished for its generosity by being deemed to have conceded the reasonableness of so farreaching an accommodation.” Terrell, 132 F.3d at 626 n.6 (quotation marks omitted); see also Lucas, 257 F.3d at 1257 n.3 (“Good deeds ought not be punished, and an employer who goes beyond the demands of the law to help a disabled employee incurs no legal obligation to continue doing so.”) Under the specific facts of this case, requiring the School Board to continue to fund the temporary, part-time tutoring position or to create another part-time teaching position at Winegard would not be reasonable. Given that Rabb failed to present evidence that her proposed accommodation was reasonable, she did not establish her prima facie case. See Terrell, 132 F.3d at 626; Willis, 108 F.3d at 284-86. Accordingly, the district court properly granted the School Board’s motion for summary judgment. 6 AFFIRMED. 6 The School Board’s motion to strike Rabb’s brief and for sanctions pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1927 and Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 38 is denied. 10