Opinion ID: 811910
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Whether McElwee is Qualified

Text: Although the parties disputed before the district court whether McElwee is a qualified individual, the court did not address this issue. See McElwee, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 114663, at , . McElwee asserts that he is qualified to participate in Valley View's volunteer program because he adequately performed his volunteer duties for years. The County, on the other hand, argues that McElwee's longstanding course of inappropriate conduct with numerous female employees, nursing students, and visitors to the facility disqualified him from serving as a volunteer. As noted, an individual is qualified to participate in a program if he meets the essential eligibility requirements for participation in the program, with or without reasonable accommodations. See 42 U.S.C. § 12131(2). To determine whether an individual is -21- qualified, courts look to a program's formal legal eligibility requirements. Henrietta D., 331 F.3d at 277 (citing 42 U.S.C. §§ 12131-12132). An eligibility requirement is not considered essential if a reasonable accommodation would enable an individual to qualify for the benefit. Castellano v. City of N.Y., 946 F. Supp. 249, 253 (S.D.N.Y. 1996), aff'd on other grounds, 142 F.3d 58 (2d Cir. 1998). The benefit here at issue is the ability to participate in Valley View's volunteer program. To be qualified for such participation, a person must have been not only mentally and physically able to perform the tasks assigned to him, but also emotionally able to conduct himself in an appropriate manner when dealing with residents, supervisors, and other staff members. There is no dispute that McElwee was always qualified to perform the former functions. But by at least 2009, his sexual harassment of female staff members appears to have rendered him unqualified as to the latter. See, e.g., Higgins v. Md. Dep't of Agric., No. L-11-0081, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 25303, at  (D. Md. Feb. 28, 2012) (finding plaintiff's -22- inappropriate workplace behavior rendered him unqualified because [t]he 'essential functions' of [plaintiff's] position included courteous and professional interactions with the public, fellow staff, subordinates, and supervisors). The extent to which McElwee's aberrant behavior, which he attributed to his disability, disqualified him from participating in Valley View's volunteer program is perhaps more easily addressed by asking whether a reasonable accommodation for his disability existed. See Sista v. CDC Ixis N. Am. Inc., 445 F.3d 161, 171 (2d Cir. 2006) (concluding that plaintiff's misconduct is distinct . . . from the issue of minimal qualification to perform a job (quoting Owens v. N.Y.C. Hous. Auth., 934 F.2d 405, 409 (2d Cir. 1991)) (internal quotation marks omitted)). We address that issue below. 2. Whether the County Discriminated Against McElwee McElwee alleges that his dismissal from Valley View's volunteer program was unlawful discrimination because he was not provided a reasonable accommodation for his disability. In particular, he claims that Darwin -23- should have (1) worked with him and his therapist to help him behave more appropriately in the workplace; and (2) worked with the Valley View employees who complained about him to educate them about McElwee's disability so that they would be more tolerant of his behavior . As an initial matter, McElwee's claim is as much a request to excuse his past misconduct as it is a request for future accommodation. He does not dispute that he followed and stared at female employees or that his conduct was reasonably perceived by others as inappropriate. It is also undisputed that when Darwin asked him about this behavior, he engaged in perseveration and made disturbing statements and gestures. This inappropriate behavior is indisputably a legitimate non-discriminatory reason for dismissing McElwee from the volunteer program , even if the behavior resulted from his disability. See Canales-Jacobs v. N.Y.S. Office of Ct. Admin., 640 F. Supp. 2d 482, 500 (S.D.N.Y. 2009); U.S. Equal Emp't Opportunity Comm'n, Enforcement Guidance: Reasonable Accommodation and Undue Hardship under the Americans with Disabilities Act , question 36 (2002). The ADA mandates reasonable -24- accommodation of people with disabilities in order to put them on an even playing field with the non-disabled; it does not authorize a preference for disabled people generally. Felix v. N.Y.C. Transit Auth., 324 F.3d 102, 107 (2d Cir. 2003). Further, even if, as McElwee argues, Darwin should have known he was disabled and proactively engaged in an interactive process to assess whether his disability could be reasonably accommodated, see Brady, 531 F.3d at 135-36, he has not met his burden of showing that the proposed accommodations are plausible, see McBride, 583 F.3d at 99101; Borkowski, 63 F.3d at 138. On the contrary, as discussed below, both of the accommodations McElwee now claims he was denied are unreasonable on their face, as a matter of law. The first accommodation McElwee proposes is that Valley View should have spoken to his therapist or encourage[d] him to obtain particularized therapy to help him behave more appropriately in the workplace and . . . better interact with colleagues. Nothing in the record before us, however, indicates that fur ther therapy would -25- have helped McElwee to refrain from his inappropriate conduct, either immediately or at any time in the near future. 6 On the contrary, a psychological evaluation conducted in August 2009 -- three months before McElwee was dismissed from Valley View -- indicated that he had a longstanding pattern of repeatedly approaching girls and women and obsessing about their rejection of him, and that this behavior was consistent with his PDD-NOS diagnosis. The evaluation also suggested that his perseverative behavior and inability to take constructive criticism were characteristics of his impairment. Further, McElwee's psychiatrist of 14 years wrote a letter to McElwee's counsel in January 2011 -- a year after McElwee filed the Complaint in this case -- reporting that [Mr. McElwee] does not respond to social cues (and body language) such as when people are having a private 6 See McBride v. BIC Consumer Prods. Mfg. Co., 583 F.3d 92, 97-98 (2d Cir. 2009) (noting that a plaintiff requesting a reassignment as an accommodation must demonstrate that a vacant position existed at or around the time when accommodation was sought); see also Myers v. Hose, 50 F.3d 278, 283 (4th Cir. 1995) ([R]easonable accommodation is by its terms most logically construed as that which presently, or in the immediate future, enables the employee to perform the essential functions of the job in question.). -26- conversation, when the topic is inappropriate to the situation, when it is time to change the subject, when he is making someone uncomfortable. The psychiatrist did not suggest that further therapy would enable McElwee to behave appropriately. Accordingly, McElwee's proposed accommodation for Valley View to work with him to obtain additional therapy was unreasonable as a matter of law because he has failed to offer any assurance that it would have enabled him to meet the essential eligibility requirements of Valley View's volunteer program at any time in the near future. 7 7 See, e.g., Mole v. Buckhorn Rubber Prods., Inc., 165 F.3d 1212, 1218 (8th Cir. 1999) (finding requested accommodation unreasonable because plaintiff could offer no assurance the requested accommodations would remedy her many job performance deficiencies, especially where a letter from her doctor warned that plaintiff has a lifelong illness that 'will likely fluctuate considerably'); K.H. ex rel. K.C. v. Vincent Smith Sch., No. 06-CV-319 (ERK) (JO), 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22412, at  (E.D.N.Y. Mar. 29, 2006) (finding requested accommodation unreasonable because it likely would not make it possible for [plaintiff] to continue to attend the School and benefit from its educational program); Higgins v. Md. Dep't of Agric., No. L-11-0081, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 25303, at  (D. Md. Feb. 28, 2012) (dismissing plaintiff's failure to accommodate claim because plaintiff has not identified an accommodation that would have enabled him to conform his behavior to an acceptable standard). -27- McElwee's second requested accommodation -- for Valley View to work with the women who complained about his behavior to educate [them] about plaintiff's disability or to [help them] better understand the nature of [their] concerns about plaintiff -- is also unreasonable as a matter of law. This proposed accommodation does not even purport to address McElwee's inappropriate behavior; instead, it simply demands that others be more tolerant. Requiring others to tolerate misconduct, however, is not the kind of accommodation contemplated by the ADA. 8 Further, nursing home employees, volunteers, and visitors 8 See Lovejoy-Wilson v. NOCO Motor Fuel, Inc., 263 F.3d 208, 217 (2d Cir. 2001) (noting that Title I and the associated regulations define reasonable accommodation as including but not limited to job restructuring, modified work schedules, reassignment, and adjustments to work environment) (citing 42 U.S.C. § 12111(9)(B) and 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(o)(1)(ii)); 42 U.S.C. § 12131(2) (accommodations available in Title II case include modifications to rules, policies, or practices, the removal of architectural, communication, or transportation barriers, or the provision of auxiliary aids and services); see, e.g., K.H., 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22412, at  (finding request for plaintiff's psychiatrist to meet with school officials to talk things over and psychiatrist's statement that officials needed to have more patience and more tolerance with plaintiff, without recommending a particular plan to manage plaintiff's behavior, was not a reasonable accommodation); Hall v. Wal-Mart Assocs., 373 F. Supp. 2d 1267, 1272 (M.D. Ala. 2005) (holding that plaintiff's sought-after accommodation -- tolerance of his dishonesty -- . . . materially differs in kind from the more common accommodations previously recognized by this court). -28- should not be required to tolerate harassing behavior, and it would be an undue hardship for Valley View to have to countenance behavior of this kind. 9 In sum, McElwee failed to present sufficient evidence below to raise a genuine issue of fact as to whether he was discriminated against because of his disability.