The case is Tafolla v. Heilig, issued on August 18. I briefed and argued this appeal. This is a nuanced decision, which I will summarize in three blog posts. The first post is at this link, dealing with whether plaintiff was required to perform an essential job function under the ADA.
Plaintiff was an administrative assistant in the DA's office who hurt her back and requested, through her doctor, an accommodation that stated she cannot lift anything more than five pounds or do any bending or pushing for two months. This meant she could not perform any archiving, which involves packing up old case files and placing them in storage. That doctor's note issued on December 10, 2013. The record shows that plaintiff's supervisor, Carroll, was hostile toward this accommodation request and even mocked it. He also appeared to misunderstand the accommodation request, believing that it only prevented plaintiff from lifting anything over five pounds, while overlooking the restriction against bending and twisting. A month later, on January 8, 2014, plaintiff's doctor issued another note, this one stating that plaintiff was unable to lift, bend, twist, or push any object over five pounds and could only perform secretarial work without any physical duties. A week after the second doctor's note, an assistant district attorney left a file on plaintiff's desk for her to archive. By this point, plaintiff knew she was probably not going to return to work because the office was not going to honor her accommodation requests. On January 16, another supervisor, Heilig, issued plaintiff a memo stating that she would not have to deal with any file that weighed more than five pounds but that the office had no light duty assignments and if she was unable to perform her job duties for any reason, including medical limitations, she would have to take medical leave until her doctor said she could return to work without any restrictions.
Apart from finding that archiving files was not an essential job function and that plaintiff therefore was not required under the ADA to perform that work if an accommodation could otherwise be worked out, the Court of Appeals (Bianco, Perez, and Sullivan in dissent) reverses summary judgment for the following reasons:
1. Defendants did not fully grant plaintiff's accommodation request, dated December 10, 2013, because supervisor Carroll did not view the five-pound restriction as distinct from the bending restriction. The jury could find that the five-pound restriction was separate and apart from the bending/twisting restriction. As Carroll did not fully honor that accommodation, the jury may rule in plaintiff's favor on this issue. As for the second accommodation request, from January 8, 2014, the jury may find that the doctor said plaintiff cannot archive any files regardless of weight, as it said plaintiff could not perform "any physical duties," or no archiving as that might involve bending or twisting regardless of the weight of the file. But Heiling only interpreted the January 8 note to prohibit plaintiff from handling files that weighed more than five pounds, and he told plaintiff that employees must work "with no restrictions." As defendants still required plaintiff to perform some archiving that involved bending or twisting, even if the files were less than five pounds, the jury may find that the DA's office denied her accommodation in violation of the ADA.
2. While the district court held that plaintiff had abandoned the interactive process because she had a duty to seek clarification if she did not understand the terms of the accommodation articulated by her doctor, that ruling was in error, the Court of Appeals says. I have not seen many cases on when the plaintiff is deemed to have abandoned the interactive process, mandated by the ADA to ensure that employees work in good faith with their employers to find a reasonable accommodation. The regulations state that once the interactive process has been initiated by the employee (which plaintiff did in this case in providing two doctors' notes), even if the employee must identify the precise limitations resulting from the disability and potential reasonable accommodations, the employer has a duty to "use a problem solving approach" as part of the interactive process. In this case, when Carroll in January 2014 told plaintiff to proceed with archiving after he received the first accommodation request a month earlier, the jury could find that he had terminated the interactive process at this point, and that this was further reinforced when an ADA left a file on plaintiff's desk for archiving. Moreover, it appears the employer rejected the second accommodation request in January 2014 in telling plaintiff there was no light duty and, as mentioned, an ADA gave plaintiff files to archive that month. What also helps plaintiff's case is that defendant did not ask plaintiff or her doctor for any clarification on the accommodation requests. Cases from around the circuits support this holding.
3. While plaintiff silently determined that she was going to take medical leave in January 2014 after it became clear to her that defendant was not going to honor her accommodation request, that does not mean (as the district court held) that she had terminated the interactive process. She did not share this intent with defendant at the time, and the record shows that she continued to convey to defendant that she would return to work, and "any contention that her failure to return to work after January 15 constituted an abandonment of the interactive process must take into account what had transpired prior to Tafolla reaching any such decision." Various statements from county employees to the effect that plaintiff would have to take medical leave if Carroll was not going to allow her to work in that office had the effect of ending the interactive process, reinforced by the Heilig memo in mid-January 2014 stating that plaintiff could only work for the DA's office without restrictions.
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