Court Opinion

ID: 9945358
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-27 19:01:31.218954+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:25:27.599938
License: Public Domain

In the

    United States Court of Appeals
                 For the Seventh Circuit
                     ____________________
No. 23-1165
LUZMARIA ARROYO,
                                                  Plaintiff-Appellant,
                                 v.

VOLVO GROUP NORTH AMERICA, LLC, doing business as Volvo
Parts North America,
                                     Defendant-Appellee.
                     ____________________

         Appeal from the United States District Court for the
           Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
           No. 1:12-cv-6859 — Robert M. Dow, Jr., Judge.
                     ____________________

  ARGUED JANUARY 25, 2024 — DECIDED FEBRUARY 27, 2024
               ____________________

   Before HAMILTON, BRENNAN, and KIRSCH, Circuit Judges.
     KIRSCH, Circuit Judge. LuzMaria Arroyo, an Army Reserv-
ist, sued her employer, Volvo Group North America, LLC, al-
leging discrimination based on her military status and her re-
lated post-traumatic stress disorder. After we reversed the
district court’s ruling granting summary judgment to Volvo,
the case proceeded to trial, where a jury ruled for Arroyo and
awarded her $7,800,000 in damages. Following trial, the
2                                                    No. 23-1165

district court granted judgment as a matter of law to Volvo on
Arroyo’s Americans with Disabilities Act claim and ordered
a new trial on the remaining Uniformed Services Employ-
ment and Reemployment Rights Act claim. After the jury
found for Volvo in the second trial, Arroyo appealed. Because
Arroyo is not a qualified individual under the ADA, and be-
cause the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding
that the jury verdict of the first trial resulted from passion and
prejudice, we affirm.
                                I
    LuzMaria Arroyo worked for Volvo Group North Amer-
ica, LLC, from June 2005 until her termination in November
2011. During that time, Arroyo also served as an Army Re-
servist and often had to take time oﬀ from Volvo to attend to
her military duties. Because of her military service, Arroyo
suﬀered from post-traumatic stress disorder. Volvo was
aware of Arroyo’s military status and her PTSD diagnosis at
all relevant times during her employment.
   Employees at Volvo are subject to an attendance policy un-
der which the employee receives a whole or fractional “occur-
rence” every time he or she arrives late to work without
providing required documentation. The policy outlines the
disciplinary steps to be taken as an employee accrues more
occurrences, with the last step resulting in termination. After
returning from a tour of duty in 2010, Arroyo accumulated
several occurrences, most of which involved her arriving to
work a few minutes late.
   Ultimately, Volvo terminated Arroyo’s employment.
While Volvo claimed Arroyo’s termination stemmed from her
violations of the attendance policy, Arroyo believed her
No. 23-1165                                                   3

termination was the result of discrimination based on her dis-
ability and her status as a member of the military. Therefore,
in August 2012, she sued Volvo for discrimination under Title
VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e et seq.,
the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12101 et seq.,
the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. §§ 791 et seq., and the
Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights
Act, 38 U.S.C. §§ 4301 et seq.; she also brought an intentional
inﬂiction of emotional distress claim under state law.
    The district court granted summary judgment to Volvo on
all claims, and Arroyo appealed. We reversed on Arroyo’s
ADA and USERRA claims. Arroyo v. Volvo Grp. N.A., LLC, 805
F.3d 278, 286–87 (7th Cir. 2015) (“Arroyo I”). On remand, the
parties proceeded to trial on those two claims. A jury returned
a verdict in favor of Arroyo across the board, awarding her
$2,600,000 in compensatory damages and $5,200,000 in puni-
tive damages for her ADA claim and ﬁnding that Volvo will-
fully violated USERRA (because of the liability ﬁnding under
the ADA, damages were not awarded under the USERRA
claim). After Arroyo requested equitable relief following trial,
the district court awarded her back pay, front pay, and other
employment-related compensation. However, pursuant to
the statutory cap under 42 U.S.C. § 1981a(b)(3)(D) of the ADA,
the district court reduced Arroyo’s compensatory and puni-
tive damages award to $300,000.
   Volvo then moved for judgment as a matter of law or, al-
ternatively, a new trial. Fed. R. Civ. P. 50 & 59. The district
court granted Volvo’s motion for judgment as a matter of law
on the ADA claim because Arroyo failed to show at trial that
she was a qualiﬁed individual under the ADA. The court next
addressed Volvo’s motion for a new trial. In doing so, the
4                                                   No. 23-1165

court ﬁrst found the jury’s damages award on the ADA claim
to be monstrously excessive and the result of passion and
prejudice. But because the court had already resolved the
ADA claim in Volvo’s favor, it only needed to determine
whether that passion and prejudice likewise infected the
jury’s liability determination on the USERRA claim. The court
concluded that it did, thereby warranting a new trial on the
USERRA claim alone.
    In February 2022, the district court held a second jury trial
on the USERRA claim. Prior to trial, the district court ex-
cluded evidence of Arroyo’s PTSD diagnosis and treatment,
ﬁnding the evidence irrelevant to the USERRA claim and
likely to confuse the jury. Ultimately, the jury found in favor
of Volvo. Arroyo, understandably frustrated with the result,
ﬁled a Rule 59(e) motion to reconsider. In her motion, Arroyo
did not explicitly seek a new trial; rather, she asked the court
to set aside the verdict in the second jury trial and reinstate
the verdict rendered in the ﬁrst. The district court interpreted
Arroyo’s request for relief as a motion seeking reconsidera-
tion of its earlier order resolving the ADA claim and granting
a new trial on the USERRA claim. The court denied the mo-
tion. Arroyo timely appealed.
                               II
   Arroyo challenges the district court’s orders granting
judgment as a matter of law to Volvo on the ADA claim and
ordering a new trial on the USERRA claim. Arroyo also ap-
peals the denial of her motion to reconsider, but we need not
address that motion because we are reviewing the underlying
orders on the merits.
No. 23-1165                                                    5

                                A
    The district court granted Volvo judgment as a matter of
law on the ADA claim because Arroyo failed to prove that she
was a qualiﬁed individual under the statute. We review a dis-
trict court’s decision to grant judgment as a matter of law de
novo. Learning Curve Toys, Inc. v. PlayWood Toys, Inc., 342 F.3d
714, 721 (7th Cir. 2003).
    A plaintiﬀ may only recover under the ADA if she is a
“qualiﬁed individual,” in other words, someone who, “with
or without reasonable accommodation, can perform the es-
sential functions of the job.” Peters v. City of Mauston, 311 F.3d
835, 842 (7th Cir. 2002) (citing 42 U.S.C. § 12111(8)). While reg-
ular attendance is not an essential function of every job, Jo-
vanovic v. In-Sink-Erator Div. of Emerson Elec. Co., 201 F.3d 894,
900 (7th Cir. 2000), an employer may treat regular attendance
as an essential job requirement and need not accommodate
unreliable attendance, Taylor-Novotny v. Health All. Med. Plans,
Inc., 772 F.3d 478, 489 (7th Cir. 2014).
    Here, Volvo maintained a policy that clearly outlined its
attendance requirement, explained how an employee accu-
mulates “occurrences” for arriving late to work, and listed the
consequences that would result from reaching a certain num-
ber of occurrences. Volvo thus undoubtedly viewed regular
and timely attendance as an essential job function. See id. at
490 (treating regular attendance as an essential job function in
part because the employer had an explicit attendance policy
in place); see also 42 U.S.C. § 12111(8) (“[C]onsideration shall
be given to the employer's judgment as to what functions of a
job are essential … .”). Arroyo indisputably arrived to work
late several times and ultimately accumulated suﬃcient oc-
currences for termination under Volvo’s policy; she therefore
6                                                   No. 23-1165

did not perform an essential job function, barring her status
as a qualiﬁed individual under the ADA.
    Arroyo’s counterarguments are unpersuasive. First, she
argues that she is a qualiﬁed individual because her supervi-
sors consistently gave her positive job performance reviews.
But Volvo only terminated Arroyo because of her attendance
issues; her otherwise satisfactory job performance is irrele-
vant. See Waggoner v. Olin Corp., 169 F.3d 481, 485 (7th Cir.
1999) (“[A]n evaluation of the quality of Tyndall’s perfor-
mance does not end our inquiry. In addition to possessing the
skills necessary to perform the job in question, an employee
must be willing and able to demonstrate these skills by com-
ing to work on a regular basis.”) (quotation omitted) (altera-
tion in original).
    Second, Arroyo complains of the unreasonable strictness
of Volvo’s policy, noting that she often received occurrences
for arriving a mere one or two minutes late. But we are not a
“super-personnel department that second-guesses facially le-
gitimate employer policies,” and it is not our role “to deter-
mine whether an employer’s expectations were fair, prudent,
or reasonable.” Boss v. Castro, 816 F.3d 910, 917 (7th Cir. 2016)
(citation omitted). Simply, Volvo required its employees to be
in the building and ready to work at their scheduled time, yet
Arroyo failed to perform that essential job function, however
minimally.
   Finally, Arroyo believes that the district court’s actions
contravened our decision in Arroyo I. But we reversed on the
ADA claim solely because the record contained suﬃcient ev-
idence for a reasonable jury to ﬁnd that Volvo discriminated
against Arroyo based on her disability. Arroyo I, 805 F.3d at
287. Our decision did not discuss Arroyo’s status as a
No. 23-1165                                                    7

qualiﬁed individual under the ADA; the district court’s grant
of judgment as a matter of law based on that ground therefore
did not conﬂict with our decision in Arroyo I. Accordingly, the
district court properly granted Volvo’s motion for judgment
as a matter of law on the ADA claim.
                                B
    The district court ordered a new trial on the USERRA
claim by ﬁnding that the jury’s verdict as to the ADA claim
resulted from passion and prejudice that also infected the
jury’s determination of USERRA liability. We review a district
court’s ruling on a motion for a new trial for abuse of discre-
tion. Hakim v. Safariland, LLC, 79 F.4th 861, 868 (7th Cir. 2023).
    A district court can order a new trial “if the verdict is not
rationally connected to the evidence, if it is born out of pas-
sion and prejudice, or if it is monstrously excessive.” Slane v.
Mariah Boats, Inc., 164 F.3d 1065, 1067 (7th Cir. 1999). Typi-
cally, when a court ﬁnds that the damages portion of a jury
verdict stemmed from passion and prejudice, a new trial on
both damages and the underlying liability is warranted. See
Ustrak v. Fairman, 781 F.2d 573, 579–80 (7th Cir. 1986) (“The
damages awarded by the jury … were so extraordinary as to
suggest that not only the jury’s assessment of damages but
also its assessment of liability may have been tainted by ‘pas-
sion and prejudice,’ thereby requiring that the entire verdict,
and not merely the damages part of it, be set aside.”); McKin-
non v. City of Berwyn, 750 F.2d 1383, 1389 (7th Cir. 1984) (“If
the motion is renewed and a new trial ordered, it will be lim-
ited to damages unless the ground of the order setting aside
the verdict is such as to imply that the whole verdict was
tainted—for example, because the jury was carried away by
passion or prejudice.”).
8                                                 No. 23-1165

    Here, the jury awarded Arroyo a substantial sum for the
ADA claim: $2,600,000 in compensatory damages and
$5,200,000 in punitive damages. The district court correctly
acknowledged that a large damages award alone does not au-
tomatically lead to an inference of passion and prejudice. See
Dresser Indus., Inc., Waukesha Engine Div. v. Gradall Co., 965
F.2d 1442, 1448–49 (7th Cir. 1992). Instead, the court empha-
sized Arroyo’s failure to present any evidence of compensa-
tory damages at trial. It then noted that the award dwarfed
the sums given in similar cases where at least some evidence
of damages was presented. See Adams v. City of Chicago, 798
F.3d 539, 543 (7th Cir. 2015) (noting that a comparison to
awards in similar cases is a factor to consider in determining
the excessiveness of an award); cf. E.E.O.C. v. AutoZone, Inc.,
707 F.3d 824, 834 (7th Cir. 2013) (in an ADA case, citing exam-
ples of compensatory damages awarded by juries that fell be-
tween $50,000 and $250,000). Finally, the court observed that
it could not reasonably separate the jury’s verdict on the ADA
claim from the closely related USERRA claim, rendering the
entire verdict tainted.
   Arroyo does not point to any evidence of compensatory
damages that she presented at trial, nor does she otherwise
explain how the district court erred in granting a new trial on
the USERRA claim. We conclude that the district court acted
within its discretion when it found that the jury’s ADA dam-
ages award resulted from passion and prejudice that infected
the rest of the verdict, thereby warranting a new trial on the
remaining USERRA claim.
    Finally, it is unclear from her motion for reconsideration
following the second trial whether Arroyo ever sought a new
trial. Assuming she did, the only alleged error she raises on
No. 23-1165                                                   9

appeal was the district court’s decision to exclude evidence of
her PTSD diagnosis and treatment. But only the USERRA
claim remained in the second trial, and USERRA prohibits
discrimination based on military status alone rather than on
conditions stemming therefrom. See 38 U.S.C. § 4311(a) (“A
person who is a member of, applies to be a member of, per-
forms, has performed, applies to perform, or has an obligation
to perform service in a uniformed service shall not be denied
… any beneﬁt of employment by an employer on the basis of
that membership … .”) (emphasis added); see also Holmes v.
Dep’t of Justice, 498 F. App’x 993, 995 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (“A PTSD
injury alone is not enough to raise a cognizable discrimination
claim under USERRA.”). Thus, the district court did not abuse
its discretion in excluding evidence of Arroyo’s PTSD as irrel-
evant.
                                                      AFFIRMED