Opinion ID: 766905
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Green's Failure to Accommodate Claim

Text: 19 The ADA makes it unlawful for employers to fail to make reasonable accommodations to the known physical or mental disabilities of an otherwise qualified individual with a disability. See 42 U.S.C. sec. 12112(b)(5)(A). A claim for failure to accommodate is separate and distinct under the ADA from one of disparate treatment because of a disability. See Weigel v. Target Stores, 122 F.3d 461, 464 (7th Cir. 1997). 20 This Court has held that a plaintiff is barred from raising a claim in the district court that had not been raised in his or her EEOC charge unless the claim is reasonably related to one of the EEOC charges and can be expected to develop from an investigation into the charges actually raised. See Cheek v. Western & Southern Life Ins. Co., 31 F.3d 497, 500 (7th Cir. 1994). 21 Green alleges that National violated the ADA by failing to make reasonable accommodations for her disability. Specifically, she claims that she was not provided with a suitable desk chair even after she requested one, nor with the appropriate dimmer lighting required by her sensitive eyes. Finally, Green asserts that she stopped parking in the handicapped parking spaces at National because she was told that she did not belong in the handicapped spaces and that the big wigs were upset that she was parking there. Green did not include any of these specific allegations in her EEOC complaint; in fact, she did not even allege National's purported failure to accommodate with the EEOC. 22 As we have stated previously, a failure to accommodate claim is separate and distinct from a claim of discriminatory treatment under the ADA. See Weigel, 122 F.2d at 464. In fact, the two types of claims are analyzed differently under the law. See id. Therefore, they are not like or reasonably related to one another, and one cannot expect a failure to accommodate claim to develop from an investigation into a claim that an employee was terminated because of a disability. See, e.g., Marshall v. Federal Express Corp., 130 F.3d 1095, 1098 (D.C. Cir. 1997) (failure to accommodate claim barred where plaintiff filed an EEOC charge alleging failure to promote based on a disability but made no mention of a failure to accommodate). 23 For whatever reason, Green neglected to make a failure to accommodate argument in her EEOC charge, and we fail to understand how she could expect that her claim that she suffered from inadequate working conditions would develop from the investigation of the reasons for her discharge. Even assuming that National did fail to accommodate Green's alleged disability, that has nothing to do with her complaint that she was wrongfully terminated. We hold that the trial judge's grant of summary judgment in favor of National on Green's failure to accommodate claim was proper.