Opinion ID: 160822
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Ability to perform patrol officer duties

Text: Sheriff Claussen also contends that Mr. Hall failed to establish that he was capable of performing the duties of a patrol officer. As a result, he contends, the jury could not have reasonably inferred that he was “a qualified person with a disability” under 42 U.S.C. § 12111(8). Sheriff Claussen advanced this argument prior to the issuance of our en banc opinion in Smith, and his position is foreclosed by our ruling there. See Smith, 180 F.3d at 1170-78. Following Smith, an employee may establish that he is a qualified individual with a disability if he is qualified to perform “with or without reasonable accommodation an available reassignment job within the company, though unable to 20 perform his or her existing job.” Id. at 1161. Thus, a jury could infer that Mr. Hall was “a qualified individual with a disability” not only if he was qualified to perform the patrol officer position in which he had served in the past but also if he was qualified to perform a vacant position to which he requested reassignment. See id. Here, Mr. Hall requested reassignment to an investigator’s position. As the district court noted in denying Sheriff Claussen’s motion for judgment as a matter of law, the evidence was disputed as to whether Mr. Hall could adequately perform the investigator’s job. However, a reasonable jury could have accepted Mr. Hall’s evidence on this point, finding him to be a qualified individual with a disability because he could perform an investigator’s job but not a patrol officer’s. Accordingly, the district court properly rejected Sheriff Claussen’s argument that Mr. Hall was not a qualified individual with a disability.2 E. Reasonable Accommodation Claim Sheriff Claussen challenges the district court’s disposition of Mr. Hall’s reasonable accommodation claim on two grounds. First, he contends that both the patrol sergeant and investigator positions would have constituted promotions for Mr. Hall 2 As discussed below, there were also factual disputes about whether there was an opening in the investigations division and whether such a position would have constituted a promotion for Mr. Hall. However, a reasonable jury could have accepted Mr. Hall’s evidence on both of those points. 21 (from his prior job as a patrol officer), and that, as a result, the Sheriff’s Department was not required to reasonably accommodate him by promoting him to one of those positions. Second, Sheriff Claussen contends that Mr. Hall unreasonably refused reassignment to a number of positions —as an officer in the detention facility, a service technician in the records division, a clerk in the records department, and as a community corrections officer. In light of Mr. Hall’s refusal of these positions, Sheriff Claussen maintains, Mr. Hall is foreclosed from asserting a failure-to-reassign claim under the ADA. Because Sheriff Claussen raised these issues in a motion for judgment as a matter of law, we engage in de novo review of the court’s decision, applying the same standards under Fed. R. Civ. P. 50. See Finley, 82 F.3d at 968. Sheriff Claussen’s arguments require us to apply the principles regarding ADA failure-to-reassign claims that we set forth in Smith, 180 F.3d at 1160-80. Pursuant to Smith, we note that it was not until May 1995, at the earliest, that Mr. Hall’s complaints could have been reasonably interpreted as a request for reassignment as a reasonable accommodation under the ADA. Prior to that time, he had notified the Sheriff’s Department of his urological condition, and the Department had responded by placing him on a temporary light duty assignment in the investigations division. However, Mr. Hall had not informed the Department that he was requesting permanent reassignment because he could no longer perform the duties of the patrol officer’s job. Thus, when Mr. Hall applied for the patrol sergeant and investigator positions in 22 February and April 1995, the Department properly viewed his applications as requests to be hired for other jobs but not as requests to be reasonably accommodated by reassignment to a vacant position, as required by the ADA. Although Mr. Hall was certainly entitled to challenge the Department’s failure to select Mr. Hall for either of these positions—by arguing that the Department did not select him because of his disability— these decisions are not implicated in Mr. Hall’s failure-to-reassign claim. Instead, the failure-to-reassign claim implicates the Sheriff Department’s actions after Mr. Hall requested reassignment. We therefore assess Sheriff Claussen’s challenges to the district court’s denial of his motion for judgment as a matter of law on his failureto-reassign claim by considering the evidence presented regarding the period from May 1995 until the termination of his employment in August 1995. 1. Positions Constituting Promotions In Smith, we concluded that, in satisfying its duty to reasonably accommodate a disabled employee through reassignment, an employer is not required to consider positions that are promotions. 180 F.3d at 1176-77. Here, Sheriff Claussen contends that this limitation on the duty to offer reassignment is applicable because the investigator position that Mr. Hall sought in May 1995 constituted a promotion. From the record provided to us by counsel, the evidence on this point appears conflicting. On the one hand, Sheriff Claussen testified on direct examination that the 23 position of criminal investigator constituted a promotion from patrol deputy. See Aplt’s App. vol. II, at 454-455. However, on cross examination, Sheriff Claussen explained that there were different kinds of investigators: “core investigators” (who did receive higher pay than patrol officers) and “rotational positions,” filled by patrol officers who rotated through the investigations division and did not receive higher pay. See Aple’s App. vol. II, at 320. Moreover, as to four positions in the investigations division that the Department filled in 1995, Sheriff Claussen stated that he did not believe that they were “core positions.” Id. at 320-21. He also stated that the investigator positions for which Mr. Hall applied paid the same as the position in the detention facility. See id. at 326. The evidence also appears conflicting as to whether such a “rotational position” was actually available after Mr. Hall sought reassignment in May 1995. Under Smith, the vacant positions to which an employer must consider reassignment include “not only positions that are at the moment vacant but also . . . positions that the employer reasonably anticipates will become vacant in the fairly immediate future.” Smith, 180 F.3d at 1175. As to this issue, Sheriff Claussen’s testimony on direct examination indicates that, at the time of Mr. Hall’s request for reassignment, the three investigator positions for which Mr. Hall had applied in April 1995 had already been filled. Moreover, Sheriff Claussen points to testimony that a fourth investigator position (one held by Ted Hartman) did not become available until September 1995, when he terminated Mr. Hartman’s employment. See Aplt’s Reply Br. at 12. However, Mr. Hall 24 refers to testimony on cross-examination in which Sheriff Claussen appears to acknowledge that there was a “rotational position” that was filled around August 1995. See Aple’s App. vol. II, at 320. Moreover, testimony from Captain Gardner on crossexamination indicated that there was yet another opening in 1995 for an investigator in the narcotics unit. See id. at 348-49. Viewing this evidence in the light most favorable to Mr. Hall, a reasonable jury could conclude that, after Mr. Hall’s May 1995 request, there was a position in the investigations division to which Mr. Hall could have been reassigned without being promoted. Thus, the district court did not err in denying Sheriff Claussen’s motion for judgment as a matter of law on that issue. 2. Refusal of Reassignment Offers Sheriff Claussen also invokes Mr. Hall’s refusal of the offers of reassignment to positions as a service technician, records clerk, community corrections officer, and detentions officer. Because Mr. Hall either did not express an interest in these positions or, in the case of the detentions position, refused to report to the job, Sheriff Claussen maintains that he cannot now pursue a claim for breach of the duty to reasonably accommodate his disability. Under Smith, an employer must first consider lateral moves to positions that are 25 regarded as equivalent. Smith, 180 F.3d at 1177. Only if there are no such positions available may an employer consider positions that constitute a demotion. Moreover, the duty to reassign under the ADA is limited to jobs “within the company.” Id. at 1174 (emphasis added). Those limitations on an employer’s duty to reassign foreclose Sheriff Claussen’s challenges based on the first three positions. In particular, it is uncontroverted that reassigning Mr. Hall to the service technician and records clerk jobs would have required him to have accepted reductions in pay. Thus, if a lateral position was available, Sheriff Claussen could not have satisfied his duty to reassign by offering Mr. Hall a position involving a reduction in pay. As to the community corrections position, it is uncontroverted that the hiring for that position was done outside the Sheriff’s Department. Thus, informing Mr. Hall of a position available outside the Department was also insufficient to satisfy its duty to reasonably accommodate him through reassignment.3 That leaves the position in the detentions facility. As to that position, Sheriff Claussen argues that, because the district court ruled that Mr. Hall’s claustrophobia did not constitute a disability under the ADA, the Department was not required to reasonably accommodate it. Thus, according to Sheriff Claussen, when Mr. Hall refused to report to the detentions facility because of his claustrophobia, the Department’s duty to reasonably Mr. Hall also testified that the Department did not notify him of the vacancy in 3 community corrections until after the posted deadline had passed. 26 accommodate him ended. See Smith, 180 F.3d at 1177 (stating that once an employer has offered a reassignment that comports with the ADA, “its duties have been discharged”).4 Sheriff Claussen’s argument requires us to consider the evidence presented to the jury concerning whether he acted reasonably under the circumstances. “Everything that an employer must do in terms of a reassignment is modified by the adjective [‘]reasonable[’], just as that term modifies any other accommodation required by the employer under the ADA.” Id. at 1171. In assessing a claim for breach of the duty to reassign, the question is what is reasonable under particular circumstances. Id. “What is ‘reasonable’ . . . has a heavy factual component.” Id. at 1178. In the context of alleged breaches of an employer’s duty to reassign, several circuits have concluded that the nature of the vacant position offered to the disabled employee may raise fact questions about the reasonableness of the employer’s offer. For example, in Rehling v. City of Chicago, 207 F.3d 1009, 1014-15 (7th Cir. 2000), the court concluded that, even though a disabled police officer was not entitled to reassignment to a particular division, the employer’s failure to honor the request for a particular reassignment could be relevant to the determination of whether the employer had acted reasonably. Similarly, in Norville v. Staten Island University Hospital, 196 4 As noted above, the district court ruled that Mr. Hall’s claustrophobia did not constitute a disability under the ADA. Mr. Hall has not challenged that ruling, and we therefore accept it for purposes of this appeal. 27 F.3d 89, 98-101 (2d Cir. 1999), the court concluded that there were factual disputes as to whether the positions offered by the employer were not “comparable” because they involved either a significant cut in salary or benefits or a significant loss of seniority. The Second Circuit’s definition of a position that would not be “comparable” is worth noting: “a position that would involve a significant diminution in salary, benefits, seniority or other advantages that she possessed in her former job.” Id. at 99 (emphasis added). The parties have not identified, nor have we found, any decisions that address the particular question that confronts us here: whether a disorder such as Mr. Hall’s claustrophobia, one that the court has ruled is not a disability protected by the ADA, may nevertheless be relevant, in certain limited circumstances, in determining whether an employer has acted reasonably in satisfying its duty to offer reassignment. In our view, the decisions of the Seventh and Second Circuits in Rehling and Norville, as well as our analysis in Smith, suggest that such a disorder may be relevant when: (1) an employee has a disability as defined by the ADA and accommodation within his existing job cannot be reasonably accomplished; (2) the employee has another disorder that is not protected by the ADA but that nevertheless renders him unqualified for certain vacant positions within the company; (3) the employee requests reassignment; (4) the employer has more than one vacant position; and (5) rather than offering reassignment to a vacant position for which the employee is qualified, the employer only offers reassignment to a position 28 that the employee is not qualified to perform because of his unprotected disorder. In that limited situation, an employer’s refusal to offer reassignment to a vacant position for which the disabled employee is qualified may raise a factual question as to whether the employer’s conduct was reasonable. Here, there is evidence in the record to support Mr. Hall’s contention that he suffered from claustrophobia and that this disorder, if untreated, rendered him unqualified for the job in the detention facility. In particular, on June 1, 1995, Mr. Hall’s physician wrote a letter to the Department stating that “[h]istorically, [Mr. Hall] has had significant difficulties working in the jail environment because of a rather marked claustrophobia” and requesting reconsideration of the proposed reassignment. Aple. App vol. II, at 374. Moreover, at trial Mr. Hall offered expert testimony from a psychiatrist who had evaluated him. The psychiatrist stated that Mr. Hall suffered from a moderate to severe type of claustrophobia involving a fear of closed spaces without ready access to escape. He reported that in such situations, Mr. Hall experienced rapid breathing and a rapid heart rate and that these symptoms had appeared in situations such as going to movies and attending his children’s plays. According to the psychiatrist, Mr. Hall’s claustrophobia could be treated with an exposure-based method, one in which there was a gradual exposure to the feared situation until the patient could master it. However, one could not “just throw a person into the most feared situation and expect the person to function competently in that circumstance.” Aple’s App. vol. I, at 154. Thus, the failure 29 to report to a job such as the one in the detentions facility was consistent with the psychiatrist’s diagnosis of Mr. Hall. Significantly, Sheriff Claussen does not challenge the psychiatrist’s conclusion that Mr. Hall could not competently perform the duties of the detentions facility position if he was “just throw[n] into [it].” See id. Moreover, there is evidence in that record indicating that the Department followed such a course of action: requiring Mr. Hall to report to the detentions facility in August 1995 and immediately terminating his employment when he did not appear. This evidence, combined with the evidence indicating that there was a vacant position in the investigations division that did not trigger Mr. Hall’s claustrophobia and that Sheriff Claussen did not offer to Mr. Hall, was sufficient for the jury to conclude that Sheriff Claussen did not reasonably accommodate Mr. Hall in the manner required by the ADA. Therefore, the district court properly denied Sheriff Claussen’s motion for judgment as a matter of law on this issue. F. Evidence of Discrimination in Termination Decision Sheriff Claussen argues that the district court erred in denying his motion for judgment as a matter of law because Mr. Hall offered insufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to conclude that he was terminated because of his disability. He notes that, prior to trial, the district court granted summary judgment on Mr. Hall’s age discrimination claim on that basis, concluding that Sheriff Claussen had met his burden 30 of advancing a legitimate basis for the termination of his employment and that Mr. Hall had failed to offer evidence that the real reason for his termination was his age. Under the ADA, in order to establish a prima facie case of discrimination in the termination of employment a plaintiff must show that: (1) he is a disabled person under the ADA; (2) he is qualified, with or without reasonable accommodation, to perform the essential functions of the job; and (3) the employer terminated him because of his disability. White v. York Int’l Corp., 45 F.3d 357, 360-61 (10th Cir.1995). If an ADA plaintiff establishes a prima facie case, the burden shifts to the employer to articulate a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its action. See Hardy v. S.F. Phosphates Ltd., 185 F.3d 1076, 1079 (10th Cir. 1999). If it does so, the burden returns to the plaintiff to present evidence that the proffered reason is not worthy of belief. See id. at 1079-80. Under this standard, we are not convinced by Sheriff Claussen’s argument that there was insufficient evidence to support Mr. Hall’s claim that he was terminated because of his disability. The fact that there was insufficient evidence of age discrimination does not establish that Sheriff Claussen complied with the ADA in terminating Mr. Hall’s employment. Moreover, as noted above, the record contains evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude the following: that, when informed of Mr. Hall’s urological condition, Sheriff Claussen refused Mr. Hall’s request for reassignment to a vacant investigator position that Mr. Hall was qualified to perform; that, rather than making that reassignment, Sheriff Claussen required Mr. Hall to report 31 to a vacant position that he was not qualified to perform because of a disorder (claustrophobia) that, although legitimate, had been determined not to be covered by the ADA; and that, when Mr. Hall failed to report to the new position, Sheriff Claussen terminated his employment. The record thus supports the inference that the reason offered by Sheriff Claussen for terminating Mr. Hall’s employment—his failure to report for the detention facility position—was a pretext for discrimination on the basis of his urological condition. See Kells v. Sinclair Buick-GMC Truck, 210 F.3d 827, 834 (8th Cir. 2000) (concluding that “failing to provide an employee with reasonable accommodations can tend to prove that the employer also acted adversely against the employee because of the individual’s disability”). Accordingly, Sheriff Claussen is not entitled to judgment as a matter of law. G.. Evidentiary Objections Sheriff Claussen advances several challenges to the district court’s evidentiary rulings, arguing that it improperly admitted evidence that prejudiced the jury. We review the district court’s rulings for an abuse of discretion. See Cartier v. Jackson, 59 F.3d 1046, 1049 (10th Cir. 1995). We will not disturb the district court’s determination absent a distinct showing it was based on a clearly erroneous finding of fact or an erroneous conclusion of law or manifests a clear error of judgment. See Lyons v. Jefferson Bank & Trust, 994 F.2d 716, 727 (10th Cir. 1993) (quoting Cooter & Gell v. 32 Hartmarx Corp., 496 U.S. 384, 405 (1990)). “In order to reverse a district court judgment on account of an evidentiary ruling, [plaintiff] must make a clear showing [ ]he suffered prejudice, and the ruling was inconsistent with substantial justice or affected [his] substantial rights.” Coletti v. Cudd Pressure Control, 165 F.3d 767, 773 (10th Cir. 1999) (quotations omitted). 1. Applications for positions before May 1995 Sheriff Claussen contends that the district court erred in allowing Mr. Hall to present evidence concerning the Department’s decision to hire other individuals for the patrol sergeant and investigator positions in February and April 1995. He maintains that, because Mr. Hall did not inform the Department of his disability until May 1995, the Department did not know that he was seeking protection under the ADA until that time and that, as a result, its prior hiring decisions are not relevant to Mr. Hall’s claims. Sheriff Claussen’s argument ignores the fact that Mr. Hall asserted several distinct challenges to the Department’s employment practices. As noted above, he not only challenged the termination of his employment in August 1995 but also asserted that it was because of his disability that Sheriff Claussen did not select him for the patrol sergeant and investigator positions for which he applied. Although it is true that at the time he applied for these positions, Mr. Hall had not formally requested reassignment as a reasonable accommodation under the ADA, that fact does not establish that Sheriff 33 Claussen did not then know that he had a disability. In fact, in the summer of 1994, Mr. Hall had been evaluated by a physician who diagnosed a urological condition and who notified the Department of his findings. In response to those findings, the Department had placed Mr. Hall on light duty. Indeed, the parties stipulated at trial that “Mr. Hall was regarded by Sheriff Clausen as having a medically documented urological condition during the 1994-1995 time frame.” Aplt’s App. vol. II, at 496; Aple’s App. vol. II, at 370. Under the ADA, an impairment that substantially limits a major life activity may constitute a disability if it is “expected to persist on a long-term basis because its anticipated duration was indefinite, unknowable, or was expected to be at least several months.” Aldrich v. Boeing, 146 F.3d 1265, 1270 (10th Cir. 1998). The evidence in the record is sufficient for a reasonable jury to conclude that, in February and April 1995, Sheriff Claussen knew that Mr. Hall’s urological condition constituted a disability. Thus, the district court did not err in admitting evidence regarding the Department’s decision to hire other individuals for the patrol sergeant and investigator positions. 2. Mr. Hall’s Claustrophobia Sheriff Claussen argues that the district court erred in admitting evidence of Mr. Hall’s claustrophobia because that disorder is not protected by the ADA. This argument is foreclosed by our ruling that Mr. Hall’s claustrophobia, even if it was not a protected 34 disability under the ADA, was nevertheless relevant to the determination of whether Sheriff Claussen failed to reasonably accommodate Mr. Hall by reassigning him to the position in the detention facility rather than by reassigning him to a vacant investigator position. Thus, the district court properly admitted this evidence.