Opinion ID: 220607
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Evaluating Valle's ADA Claims

Text: On appeal, Valle argues that the district court erred in holding as a matter of law that she had not met her burden of proving that she was qualified to perform her essential job functions with or without reasonable accommodation. Valle also argues that the district court erred in concluding that (1) the agency had granted her reasonable accommodations, (2) Gregory's treatment of Valle did not constitute harassment, in the district court's usage, (3) there was no retaliation, and (4) Valle failed to present evidence as to her salary as required to support her Law 80 claims. We agree with Valle that the district court erred in granting judgment as a matter of law to the Ports Authority at the close of Valle's case-in-chief. It was not the role of the district court to consider the credibility of witnesses, resolve conflicts in testimony, or evaluate the weight of the evidence. Andrade, 82 F.3d at 1186 (quoting Wagenmann v. Adams, 829 F.2d 196, 200 (1st Cir.1987)) (internal quotation mark omitted). Valle presented evidence that would allow a reasonable jury to find each element of her claims in her favor, and so she was entitled to submit her case to the jury. We do not engage in a long discussion of the evidence, in light of the district court's bare-bones ruling, but we briefly address each of Valle's claims of error in turn. We do not suggest that a jury could not reach the same conclusion on the evidence that the district court did. We hold only that the decision belonged to the jury, not the judge. [8] We examine the second element Valle must show to prove her reasonable accommodations case: that despite her disability she was nevertheless able to perform the essential functions of [her] job, either with or without reasonable accommodation. Tobin v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Co., 433 F.3d 100, 104 (1st Cir.2005). The district court held that Valle is not a qualified individual under the ADA because she was absent six months in a 16-month period from June, 2005, to October, 2006 and [a]n employee who does not come to work cannot perform any function[,] not just the essential functions of her job. The district court relied on our opinion in Rios-Jimenez v. Principi, 520 F.3d 31 (1st Cir.2008), for support. In Rios-Jimenez, we held that, [a]t the risk of stating the obvious, attendance is an essential function of any job. Id. at 42; see also Waggoner v. Olin Corp., 169 F.3d 481, 485 (7th Cir.1999) ([A]n employee who does not come to work cannot perform the essential functions of his job.) (quoting Nowak v. St. Rita High Sch., 142 F.3d 999, 1003 (7th Cir.1998)) (internal quotation marks omitted). This is a true statement of law. But it is not dispositive here, where the district court failed to consider the evidence Valle had presented that the flexible work schedule she had requested as an accommodation would have enabled her to fulfill this essential function of attendance. Valle testified that she had never been reprimanded in relation to her attendance during the period from 2003-2005 in which her supervisors had informally granted her a flexible schedule. She also testified that the stress of Gregory's repeated haranguing about Valle's attendance contributed to Valle's acute need to take extended medical leave, which in turn resulted in the long absences on which the district court based its ruling. Significantly, there was expert testimony to support this contention. Valle's expert witness, a psychiatrist, testified similarly, and also testified that it caused Valle a great deal of stress to go to work realizing that she was going to be late, which led to many of her absences. A reasonable jury crediting this testimony could conclude that Valle had produced sufficient evidence that she was able to attend work regularly when granted the reasonable accommodation of a flexible schedule. The Ports Authority claims that, starting in August 2005, Gregory informally allowed Valle to enter work as late as 8:30 a.m., and that this accommodation continued until Valle's request was formally granted in March 2007, in the form of a 9:00 a.m. start time. This, the Ports Authority argues, means that there was never a time during which Valle was not accommodated, rendering her reasonable accommodations claim moot. However, whether there was any such informal arrangement between Gregory and Valle is a disputed question of fact for the jury, as Valle denied any such informal arrangement on cross-examination. Further, the letter from Gregory to Valle memorializing the purported arrangement was dated April 5, 2007, after the agency had begun efforts to terminate Valle, after Valle filed an administrative complaint against the agency, and seventeen months after Valle's first formal accommodations request. The district court also concluded that Valle had failed to prove that the Ports Authority knew of her disability and did not reasonably accommodate it. See Carroll, 294 F.3d at 237. The district court reasoned, without reference to any of the evidence Valle had presented, that because the Ports Authority eventually granted Valle a flexible schedule, and because the ADA does not specify a time period within which employers must grant accommodations, the Ports Authority had not denied Valle reasonable accommodations. As Valle argues, unreasonable delay may amount to a failure to provide reasonable accommodations. See, e.g., Astralis Condo. Ass'n v. Sec'y, U.S. Dep't of Hous. & Urban Dev., 620 F.3d 62, 68-69 (1st Cir.2010) (holding on petition for review of agency enforcement order for discrimination on the basis of disability that condominium association's delay of more than a year in deciding on request for designated handicapped parking spaces constituted a denial of accommodation request); Calero-Cerezo, 355 F.3d at 25 ([A] factfinder might well conclude that... the defendants simply stonewalled  going so far as to deny, in the face of substantial medical evidence, that plaintiff suffered a disability at all.). So too may an employer's failure to engage in an informal interactive process following an employee's request. Soto-Ocasio v. Fed. Express Corp., 150 F.3d 14, 19 (1st Cir. 1998) (quoting Jacques v. Clean-Up Grp., Inc., 96 F.3d 506, 515 (1st Cir.1996)); see also 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2( o )(3) (ADA interpretive regulations). Here, where Valle testified to ways in which the Ports Authority did not follow its normal reasonable accommodations procedure in her case, where the agency delayed months after even the 2006 request, and where the rigid 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. schedule eventually granted was not what she sought and arguably did not reasonably accommodate Valle's condition, Valle was entitled to present to a jury the question of whether the agency failed to grant her a reasonable accommodation. [9] The district court entered judgment dismissing Valle's retaliation claim as well. There were no written motions or memoranda on the Ports Authority's oral motion for judgment as a matter of law, only oral argument on the morning of the eighth day of the jury trial, which reveals little discussion about the retaliation claim and its relation to Valle's substantive discrimination claim. The district court's two-page oral ruling on the defendant's oral motion merely stated that the retaliation claim was dismissed, without explaining the grounds on which the Ports Authority was entitled to judgment on it as a matter of law. The events of harassment to which Valle testified could be considered by a reasonable jury to be either discrimination on the basis of Valle's disability or retaliation for her reasonable accommodations requests. A jury could at least, on the record so far, conclude that the termination of Valle's employment was an act of retaliation. A jury crediting Valle's evidence that she was singled out for punishment despite other employees' use of agency resources for personal matters, and her evidence that she did not violate any agency policy in her handling of the files from Gladys Orengo's reasonable accommodation case, could reasonably find that the reasons the Ports Authority gave for firing Valle were retaliation against Valle for pursuing her reasonable accommodations requests. The timing of the events also supports such an inference. [10] The district court erred in granting judgment as a matter of law on the retaliation claim. Finally, we also vacate and remand the district court's judgment on Valle's Law 80 claim. Law 80, a remedial measure in Puerto Rico law that mandates severance pay for terminated employees under certain circumstances, bases the amount an entitled employee receives on that employee's pre-termination compensation. See Otero-Burgos v. Inter Am. Univ., 558 F.3d 1, 7-9 (1st Cir.2009) (discussing Law 80's history and purpose). The district court held, without any discussion, that there was no evidence as to the amount of the Law 80 claim, even though Valle had testified that her compensation for Law 80 purposes was close to $78,000. Valle argues this was sufficient evidence, while the Ports Authority argues that damages under Law 80 must be proven with a certain level of specificity that Valle's testimony does not satisfy. Neither side cites any authority for its position. Absent any helpful briefing on the facts or the law, we decline to decide the issue on this record and vacate the entry of judgment on the Law 80 claim for further proceedings along with Valle's other claims. The order of the district court granting judgment as a matter of law to the Ports Authority is vacated in its entirety and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. Costs are awarded to Valle pursuant to Fed. R.App. P. 39(a)(4).