Court Opinion

ID: 9839187
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-12 14:07:32.137006+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:12:41.447382
License: Public Domain

NOTICE: Summary decisions issued by the Appeals Court pursuant to M.A.C. Rule
23.0, as appearing in 97 Mass. App. Ct. 1017 (2020) (formerly known as rule 1:28,
as amended by 73 Mass. App. Ct. 1001 [2009]), are primarily directed to the parties
and, therefore, may not fully address the facts of the case or the panel's
decisional rationale. Moreover, such decisions are not circulated to the entire
court and, therefore, represent only the views of the panel that decided the case.
A summary decision pursuant to rule 23.0 or rule 1:28 issued after February 25,
2008, may be cited for its persuasive value but, because of the limitations noted
above, not as binding precedent. See Chace v. Curran, 71 Mass. App. Ct. 258, 260
n.4 (2008).

                       COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS

                                 APPEALS COURT

                                                  22-P-983

                                  ERIC MADONNA

                                       vs.

      MASSACHUSETTS COMMISSION AGAINST DISCRIMINATION & another. 1

               MEMORANDUM AND ORDER PURSUANT TO RULE 23.0

        The plaintiff, Eric Madonna, filed a complaint with the

 Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD or

 commission), alleging that his former employer, the Fall River

 Police Department (FRPD), unlawfully denied him certain

 employment opportunities because of his posttraumatic stress

 disorder (PTSD) diagnosis.        MCAD dismissed the complaint, and

 Madonna sought judicial review in Superior Court.              A judge

 dismissed that complaint, and Madonna now appeals.              He argues

 that MCAD erred in failing to apply the framework adopted in

 Gannon v. Boston, 476 Mass. 786 (2017), when determining whether

 the FRPD unlawfully denied him details and overtime shifts.                We

 conclude that MCAD's decision did not adequately address

 1   Fall River Police Department.
Madonna's arguments, and we vacate the judgment and remand the

matter to MCAD for reconsideration.

     Factual background.     We summarize the relevant portions of

the hearing officer's findings of fact.

     Madonna started working as an officer for the FRPD in 1996

and typically worked night shifts "on the streets."     Several

years later, he temporarily left his position to serve two tours

of duty with the Army in Iraq, but he returned full-time to his

job with the FRPD in June 2006.     By 2008, Madonna's mental

health had declined severely, and he was eventually diagnosed

with PTSD.   After completing a three-month residential treatment

program in November 2008, Madonna sought to return to work with

reasonable accommodations that would prevent his PTSD symptoms

from worsening.   Madonna, his licensed therapist, and the FRPD

internal affairs officer agreed that Madonna should be limited

to daytime shifts to accommodate the sleep issues caused by his

PTSD.

     In December 2008, Madonna returned to the FRPD in the

newly-created role of evidence custodian.     In this position,

Madonna worked a regular daytime shift with no weekend or

holiday hours.    At some point in the weeks following his return,

Madonna requested that he be allowed to work details and

overtime shifts again.     On January 27, 2009, Madonna was

informed that he was not eligible for details or overtime shifts

                                   2
due to a department policy making such assignments unavailable

to "light duty" officers.

     On hearing the news that he would not be permitted to work

details, Madonna testified that he became "stressed out,"

feeling "physically shaken up inside" and like his head "was

going to explode."   He left in the middle of his shift --

without his supervisor's permission -- to seek an emergency

appointment with his therapist.   Madonna called in sick the next

day due to stress.

     Concerned that Madonna might intentionally hurt himself,

FRPD Chief John Souza ordered Madonna to turn in his service

revolver, personal firearms, police badge, and other related

items.   This escalated the situation; according to Madonna's

therapist, Madonna became "extremely distraught" at being

ordered to turn in his weapons.   Nevertheless, the therapist

told the FRPD that Madonna was "not in danger of harming

[him]self or others" at that time.    A doctor at a Veterans

Administration hospital agreed, after an evaluation on January

29, that Madonna was neither homicidal nor suicidal.    Madonna

later testified that he was, in fact, suicidal that day, but

that he would "never do it [him]self."    Madonna never returned

to work at the FRPD after the events of January 27 and 28, 2009.

                                  3
Chief Souza banned Madonna from the police station entirely, and

Madonna was put on paid leave pending his expected retirement. 2

     Procedural history.   In September 2009, Madonna filed a

complaint with MCAD alleging that the FRPD had discriminated

against him due to his PTSD-related disability.   Madonna argued,

among other things, that the FRPD unlawfully denied him overtime

shifts and details based on the stereotype that his PTSD made

him a danger to himself or others.   He suggested that the FRPD

should be required to show, by a preponderance of the evidence,

that he was not qualified to perform these functions because he

posed a "direct threat," and that it reached this conclusion

based on "current medical knowledge and/or the best available

objective evidence."   Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Echazabal, 536 U.S.

73, 85-86 (2002), quoting 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(r) (2001).

     Following a seven-day hearing, the MCAD hearing officer

dismissed the complaint.   She found that, while Chief Souza

believed in good faith that the policy restricting light-duty

officers from working details and overtime shifts applied to

Madonna, the Chief was also partially motivated by his "concerns

2 Madonna was put on paid injury leave under G. L. c. 41, § 111F,
for almost four years. FRPD policy prohibits employees on leave
under this section from working for another employer without
consent from the Chief, and even then, the employee may not work
more than twenty hours per week. Despite the policy, while on
leave, Madonna obtained full-time employment with the Navy, and
later with the Department of Homeland Security, without
informing or obtaining consent from the FRPD.

                                 4
that paid details and overtime would place [Madonna] in contact

with the public and create potential safety issues" due to

Madonna's PTSD.   Nevertheless, the hearing officer concluded

that Chief Souza's concerns were supported by record evidence

and were "not unreasonable."

     In appealing the dismissal to the full commission, Madonna

made two main arguments related to the "direct threat" standard

that he articulated to the hearing officer.   First, he asserted

that the hearing officer failed to assess whether the claimed

danger posed by Madonna's PTSD actually rose to the level of a

"direct threat" -- defined as a "significant risk of substantial

harm to the health or safety of the [employee] or others that

cannot be eliminated or reduced by reasonable accommodation."

29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(r) (2022).   Second, Madonna argued that the

hearing officer improperly deferred to Chief Souza's assessment

of the risk, which Madonna asserted was informed by a

prejudicial stereotype, instead of requiring the FRPD to show

that it made an individualized assessment based on objective

medical evidence.

     While Madonna's appeal to the commission was pending, the

Supreme Judicial Court decided Gannon v. Boston, 476 Mass. 786

(2017).   The Gannon decision, in relevant part, confirmed that,

in what it termed a "qualified handicapped person" case --

wherein an employer claims that a safety risk stemming from an

                                 5
employee's disability renders the employee unqualified to

perform an essential job function -- the employer must come

forward with "specific evidence showing that the employee would

pose an unacceptably significant risk of serious injury to the

employee or others."    Id. at 799.      The employer must also show

"that it has made 'an individualized factual inquiry' based on

substantial information regarding the employee's individual work

and medical history."    Id. at 799-800.      "At trial, the fact

finder must determine not whether the [employer] acted on a good

faith belief that [the employee] cannot capably perform [a

position's full] duties because of his handicap, but whether

[the employee] has proved by a preponderance of the evidence

that he can do so."    Id. at 797.

     The full commission affirmed the decision of the hearing

officer in April 2019, reiterating that "Chief Souza's concerns

about [Madonna] working with the public and possessing firearms

as a result of his PTSD symptoms were legitimate based upon the

evidence in the record," and concluding, with little further

analysis, that the FRPD's actions were not discriminatory.

Despite Madonna's "direct threat" argument, and although the

full commission's decision cited the "unacceptably significant

risk" standard from Gannon, 476 Mass. at 799, the commission's

decision did not apply either standard.        Nor did it address

whether the FRPD's evidence was sufficiently objective and

                                     6
reliable, or whether it sufficed to meet the employer's burden

of producing evidence showing that a PTSD-related safety risk

rendered Madonna unqualified to perform details and overtime

shifts.   See Gannon, 476 Mass. at 799-800 (employer's burden of

production).

     Madonna next sought judicial review of MCAD's decision in

Superior Court, where he essentially repeated the same arguments

he made before the full commission, this time using parts of the

framework provided in Gannon in addition to the "direct threat"

standard.    The judge, however, did not address Madonna's

arguments.    Instead, he granted summary judgment to MCAD based

on what he termed the hearing officer's "implicit[]" finding

that the denial of Madonna's request for details and overtime

shifts was not an adverse employment action.    The judge, quoting

Ritchie v. Department of State Police, 60 Mass. App. Ct. 655,

665 (2004), reasoned that the denial did not constitute "a

change in working conditions that create[d] a material

disadvantage in the plaintiff's employment" (quotation and

citation omitted), because Madonna was a light-duty officer and

the FRPD's policy prohibited such officers from working overtime

shifts and details. 3

3 Although we consider the judge's reasoning, it carries no
special weight on appeal; our review is de novo. See Smith
College v. Massachusetts Comm'n Against Discrimination, 376
Mass. 221, 224 (1978).

                                  7
     Discussion.    On appeal, Madonna asserts that MCAD erred by

failing to apply the framework outlined in Gannon.

     1.   Waiver.   As a preliminary matter, we reject MCAD's

contention that Madonna waived any arguments based on Gannon by

failing to raise them before the full commission or Superior

Court.    Generally, "[a] party is not entitled to raise arguments

on appeal that he could have raised, but did not raise, before

the administrative agency . . . [nor] in the court below."

Albert v. Municipal Court of Boston, 388 Mass. 491, 493–494

(1983).   "The inquiry into whether an issue has been raised is

fact specific."     Boss v. Leverett, 484 Mass. 553, 563 (2020).

It requires us to determine whether the agency and Superior

Court were "fairly put on notice as to the substance of the

issue."   Chelsea Hous. Auth. v. McLaughlin, 482 Mass. 579, 584

(2019), quoting Nelson v. Adams USA, Inc., 529 U.S. 460, 469

(2000).

     As discussed above, Madonna raised two major arguments

before the full commission and Superior Court.     We acknowledge

that, in his appellate brief, Madonna has reframed his previous

arguments about the "direct threat" standard to use the

framework provided in Gannon.     First, instead of asserting that

MCAD erred by failing to apply the "direct threat" standard,

Madonna now argues that the hearing officer should have

considered whether he posed an "unacceptably significant risk."

                                   8
The substance of this argument, however, remains the same:      in

Madonna's view, MCAD should have assessed whether the evidence

showed that he posed a safety risk so significant as to render

him unqualified to perform details and overtime shifts.    See

Gannon, 476 Mass. at 799-800.

     Second, and similarly, Madonna now uses the language of

Gannon to clarify his earlier argument against the deferential

"reasonableness" standard applied by the hearing officer.      He

now equates the "reasonableness" standard to the "good faith"

standard rejected in Gannon.    The substance of his argument,

however, is still that the hearing officer should have

determined not merely whether the FRPD acted without animus or

pretext but whether the FRPD's risk assessment was informed and

supported by sufficient objective evidence.    The employer's good

faith is not a defense.    See Gannon, 476 Mass. at 796-797.

     We also reject MCAD's assertion that Madonna was required

to update his briefing to the full commission after Gannon was

issued in 2017. 4   As explained, Madonna's brief to the commission

provided adequate notice of his arguments.    Having cited Gannon

4 At the time MCAD issued its decision in this case, its
regulations were silent about what, if any, actions a party
should take when a relevant court decision is issued during the
pendency of a full commission review. See 804 Code Mass. Regs.
§ 1.23 (2019). The regulations have since been updated to
specify that parties may advise the commission by letter of any
pertinent and significant authorities that come to their
attention. See 804 Code Mass. Regs. § 1.23(4) (2020).

                                  9
in its decision for the proposition that "the employer must make

an individualized factual inquiry into the employee's work and

medical history in order to determine whether the employee would

pose an unacceptably significant risk of serious injury to

himself or others," MCAD cannot now claim that it was unaware of

Gannon's potential relevance. 5

     2.   Applicability of Gannon.      MCAD's main argument on

appeal is that Gannon is inapplicable here because Madonna did

not make a "qualified handicapped person" claim based on

disparate treatment, but instead, a "failure to accommodate"

claim.    Accordingly, MCAD states that the focus of its inquiry

was not whether Madonna was qualified to perform details and

overtime shifts, but whether the FRPD negotiated in good faith

and provided Madonna with reasonable accommodations.       MCAD urges

us to affirm on the ground that, despite the FRPD's attempts to

negotiate in good faith, Madonna abandoned the interactive

process required under MCAD guidelines when an employee seeks

accommodations for a disability.       See generally Massachusetts

Commission Against Discrimination, Guidelines:       Employment

5 We note, however, that MCAD's characterization of Gannon as
requiring the employer to determine the unacceptably significant
risk issue appears to conflict with language in Gannon requiring
the finder of fact in the discrimination case to decide that
issue. See Gannon, 476 Mass. at 797.

                                  10
Discrimination on the Basis of Handicap, § VII (1998) ("MCAD

Guidelines").   We decline to do so for several reasons.

     First, the record does not support MCAD's assertion that it

has always viewed this case exclusively through a failure to

accommodate lens.    To the contrary, the hearing officer

explicitly considered whether the denial of details and overtime

shifts "constitute[d] disparate treatment based on handicap

discrimination."    And, if MCAD considered Gannon inapplicable,

it is puzzling that MCAD did not say so when citing Gannon in

its decision.

     More fundamentally, however, neither the hearing officer

nor MCAD articulated the good faith negotiation standard

anywhere in their respective decisions.    Nor did the hearing

officer make any findings of fact about the parties' interactive

process, let alone any conclusions of law based on Madonna's

supposed abandonment of the process.    Because MCAD did not rely

on the abandonment rationale below, neither may we rely on it to

affirm MCAD's decision.    See Doe, Sex Offender Registry Bd. No.

58574 v. Sex Offender Registry Bd., 98 Mass. App. Ct. 307, 313

(2020), quoting Department of Homeland Sec. v. Regents of the

Univ. of Cal., 140 S. Ct. 1891, 1909 (2020) ("The basic rule

                                 11
. . . is clear:   An agency must defend its actions based on the

reasons it gave when it acted"). 6

     Second, regardless of which framework MCAD applied to

Madonna's case, it has not sufficiently explained why it did not

apply the Gannon standard.   In particular, having received

Madonna's appeal arguing that the hearing officer should have

applied the "direct threat" standard, and knowing that standard

had been superseded by Gannon, as evidenced by its citation to

the new standard in its decision, it was incumbent on the full

commission to explain what standard applied to Madonna's case

and then how it was applying that standard to the facts found by

the hearing officer.   See Retirement Bd. of Somerville v.

Contributory Retirement Appeal Bd., 38 Mass. App. Ct. 673, 678

(1995), quoting G. L. c. 30A, § 11 (8) (agency decision "shall

be accompanied by a statement of reasons for the decision,

including determination of each issue of fact or law necessary

to the decision").   The commission seemed to acknowledge that

Gannon was relevant, yet it did not determine (1) whether the

FRPD actually conducted "an individualized factual inquiry based

6 For a related reason, we decline to affirm on the basis
supplied by the judge. A reviewing court may "not 'supply a
reasoned basis for the agency's action that the agency itself
has not given'" (citation omitted). Costello v. Department of
Pub. Utils., 391 Mass. 527, 536 (1984). As discussed supra, the
judge ruled for MCAD based on the absence of any adverse
employment action, yet neither the hearing officer nor MCAD had
ruled on that basis.

                                12
on substantial information regarding the employee's individual

work and medical history" (quotation and citation omitted),

Gannon, 476 Mass. at 799-800; (2) whether the FRPD presented

sufficient evidence that Madonna "would pose an unacceptably

significant risk of serious injury to [himself] or others," id.

at 799; or (3) if the FRPD had done so, then whether Madonna

could in fact "safely perform" details and overtime shifts.     Id.

We are left only with MCAD's conclusion that the FRPD's concerns

were "legitimate" and "justified," without any definite

statement of how that resolved Madonna's claim.

     Third, we are unpersuaded by MCAD's assertion in its brief

that, viewing this as a failure to accommodate case, Gannon does

not apply.   Under MCAD's own guidelines, a "reasonable

accommodation" is "any adjustment or modification to a job [or]

employment practice . . . that makes it possible for a

handicapped individual to perform the essential functions of the

position involved and to enjoy equal terms, conditions and

benefits of employment" (emphasis added).   MCAD Guidelines,

§ II(C).   The opportunity to earn extra compensation through

details and overtime shifts would appear to be a term,

condition, or benefit of employment as a police officer.   Cf.

Yee v. Massachusetts State Police, 481 Mass. 290, 297 (2019)

(denial of desired opportunity to earn extra compensation can

constitute adverse employment action).   Where, as here, the

                                13
employer defends its decision not to extend a term, condition,

or benefit to an employee based on the employee's disability

status and what the employer believes to be a resulting threat

to the safety of the employee or others, the principles

underlying Gannon would appear relevant in analyzing whether the

overall accommodation offered by the employer is "reasonable."

     Although Madonna asks us to apply Gannon and order a

finding in his favor on liability, we think it preferable that

MCAD determine the issues presented by Madonna in the first

instance.   See Doe, Sex Offender Registry Bd. No. 11204 v. Sex

Offender Registry Bd., 97 Mass. App. Ct. 564, 576 (2020).   To

that end, we vacate the judgment and order the entry of a new

judgment remanding the matter to MCAD for reconsideration and

any necessary further proceedings, which may include the taking

of additional evidence before a hearing officer. 7

                                     So ordered.

                                     By the Court (Sacks, Grant &
                                       Smyth, JJ. 8),

                                     Clerk

Entered: September 12, 2023.

7 As we do not rule in favor of Madonna on his underlying claim,
we deny his request for attorney's fees under G. L. c. 151B,
§§ 5 & 9.
8 The panelists are listed in order of seniority.

                                14