Opinion ID: 857554
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Parking space

Text: Cloe first argues that the City failed to grant her request for a nearby parking space within a reasonable amount of time. The timeline of events for this claim is a little hazy, but, viewed in the light most favorable to Cloe, see Arizanovska, 682 F.3d at 702, the evidence suggests as follows: Cloe worked at the Indianapolis City-County Building located at 200 East Washington Street in downtown Indianapolis. (R. 54-1 at ¶ 4.) When Cloe first started working there, she was assigned parking in a garage at the intersection of Maryland Street and Alabama 10 No. 12-1713 Street, about two blocks away.3 (Id. at ¶ 3.) In April 2008, Cloe mentioned to her supervisors that she was having trouble walking from the parking garage. (Id. at ¶ 4.) The record does not indicate, however, that she specifically requested an accommodation based on this difficulty. (Id.) Because of her difficulties, Cloe started parking at her own expense in a lot catty-corner to the City- County building at the intersection of Market Street and Alabama Street. (Id.) On July 2, 2008, Cloe submitted a list of medical restrictions to the City. (See R. 46-18.) The restrictions indicated that “[s]pecified parking is preferred if possible” and that, “[i]f required to park [at] a distance the patient will walk back to office at her own pace.” (Id. at 3.) In response, the City assigned Cloe to a different lot at Washington Street and Alabama Street, directly across the street from the City-County Building. (R. 54-1 at ¶ 4.) It is unclear exactly when Cloe actually received a parking pass for this lot. Emails sent on October 17, 2008, strongly suggest that Cloe had already been parking at this new location for some time; in one of the October 17 emails, Cloe discussed how she had a hard time finding parking at the new location and that she had tried to contact a City administrator several 3 We have taken judicial notice of—and drawn our distance estimates from—images available on Google Maps, “a source whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned, at least for the purpose of determining” general distances. United States v. Perea-Rey, 680 F.3d 1179, 1182 n. 1 (9th Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). No. 12-1713 11 times about the problem but was uncomfortable leaving voicemail messages. (R. 46-23 at 3-4.) A later affidavit from Cloe, however, states that she did not receive the pass until “mid October” 2008. (R. 54-1 at ¶ 4.) Obviously, these two pieces of evidence are in tension, although perhaps not irreconcilably so. Harmonizing them in the light most favorable to Cloe, we will assume that she received the pass sometime in the weeks leading up to October 17. On September 24, 2008—while Cloe was waiting to receive a permit for the lot on Washington Street and Alabama Street—Cloe’s doctor wrote a note stating that Cloe could not walk long distances and that she needed to park “at the City County building.” (R. 46-22 at 2.) Cloe submitted the note to the City the following day.4 (R. 54-1 at ¶ 5.) A series of email exchanges followed on October 17, 2008. (See R. 46-23 at 2-4.) In those exchanges, Cloe thanked several City employees for “work[ing] very hard to get me able to park close to the building.” (Id. at 3.) However, Cloe also indicated that there had been a misunderstanding and that the 4 The City claims that Cloe did not actually submit the note until October 2008 and that she admitted as much in her deposition. (See Appellee’s Br. at 13-14.) But the record on this point is not as clear as the City suggests. While there is some tension in the record, we do not think that Cloe’s deposition testimony directly contradicted her later affidavit that mentioned the September 25 date. Viewed in the light most favorable to Cloe, the record supports the inference that Cloe submitted the note on September 25, 2008. 12 No. 12-1713 new lot was not working out—Cloe frequently had to park on the far side of the lot and walk almost a full extra block to work. (Id. at 3-4.) A City employee offered to meet to discuss alternative accommodations. (Id. at 3.) A visitor’s parking placard for an underground lot immediately below the City-County building became available on November 10, 2008. (R. 46-24.) Cloe received it the following day, along with a special placard allowing her to park at nearby parking meters without paying. (R. 46-1 at 55); (R. 46-25). After a while though, it became clear that these solutions were not adequate either—the visitor’s spots and street spots were often full when Cloe needed to park. (R. 46-1 at 55.) Cloe brought the problem to the City’s attention at some point in November or December 2008. (Id. at 55-56.) In early December 2008, another City employee left his position, and Cloe received the departed employee’s permanent underground parking spot. (Id.); (R. 54-1 at ¶ 5). Cloe does not argue that the permanent parking pass she received in December 2008 failed to meet her needs. Instead, Cloe contends that the winding path the City took to get there was unreasonable. There is no reason, she claims, for the City not to have given her a permanent parking spot immediately. The delays, in turn, show that the City did not act reasonably to accommodate her disability. We respectfully disagree. Reasonable accommodation under the ADA is a process, not a one-off event. The process begins with the employee, who has the initial duty to inform the employer of the disability. No. 12-1713 13 See Sears, 417 F.3d at 803-04. Absent special circumstances, like a severe cognitive disability or mental illness, see Bultemeyer v. Ft. Wayne Cmty. Schs., 100 F.3d 1281, 1285-87 (7th Cir. 1996), the employee’s initial duty requires that he or she “indicate to the employer that she has a disability and desires an accommodation,” Sears, 417 F.3d at 803. Here, Cloe mentioned to her supervisors that she was having trouble walking in April, but she never specifically asked them for an accommodation until July 2, 2008. As a result, we think that the accommodation process began, at the earliest, on July 2, 2008, when Cloe submitted a note from her doctor specifically requesting parking accommodations. See Ekstrand v. Sch. Dist. of Somerset, 583 F.3d 972, 976 (7th Cir. 2009) (“our cases have consistently held that disabled employees must make their employers aware of any nonobvious, medically necessary accommodations with corroborating evidence such as a doctor’s note or at least orally relaying a statement from a doctor,” before an employer is required to provide an accommodation). Upon receiving an accommodation request, an em- ployer is not required to provide the exact accommodation requested. Sears, 417 F.3d at 802. Instead, “the ADA obligates the employer to engage with the employee in an interactive process to determine the appropriate accommodation under the circumstances.” Id. at 805 (internal quotation marks omitted). This process brings the employee and employer together in cooperation to “identify the employee’s precise limitations and discuss accommodation which might enable the employee to continue working.” Gile v. United Airlines, Inc., 213 F.3d 14 No. 12-1713 365, 373 (7th Cir. 2000). “If this process fails to lead to reasonable accommodation of the disabled employee’s limitations, responsibility will lie with the party that caused the breakdown.” Sears, 417 F.3d at 805. We do not think that the interactive process broke down here. After being informed of Cloe’s needs, the City provided her with parking at a lot closer to the building. When that did not work out, it gave her a visitor’s pass allowing her to park under the building and another pass allowing her to park on the nearby streets. And when that also did not work out, the City gave her a permanent underground parking spot once one opened up. This is exactly the sort of “interactive process,” id. at 805, that the ADA calls for. In retrospect, of course, it clearly would have been easier to give Cloe a permanent underground pass at the outset. But that is only clear in retrospect. The City had no way of knowing that its other seemingly reasonable accommodations—a different lot, visitor parking, street parking—would be insufficient. And, more importantly, once the City found out that its proposed accommodations were insufficient, it acted with reasonable speed to come up with new ones. We do not think a reasonable jury could find these efforts unreasonable. As a result, summary judgment was proper on this claim.