Wise v. Dejoy.
No. 21-1224. Rehabilitation Act—Failure to Accommodate—Retaliation—Pretext—Summary Judgment.
June 16, 2023
Wise was a mail carrier for the US Postal Service (USPS). She became pregnant and asked to avoid handling heavy items. The USPS agreed to provide Wise with help whenever she told someone that something was too heavy. The USPS allegedly failed to accommodate Wise’s need for help with heavy items on two occasions. After the second occasion, Wise walked off the job and told the USPS that she was quitting. She quickly changed her mind, and the USPS let her return to work, but she was fired several days later. Wise sued under the Rehabilitation Act for failing to accommodate her need for help in handling heavy items and for retaliation against her for seeking an accommodation. The district court granted summary judgment to the USPS on both claims.
On appeal, Wise argued that the district court erred in granting summary judgment on the failure to accommodate claim. Under the Rehabilitation Act, a duty to accommodate exists if the employee shows (1) a disability, (2) the qualifications for the job, (3) a request for a plausibly reasonable accommodation, and (4) a failure to provide the accommodation. As relevant here, Wise alleged that the USPS failed to accommodate her needs by requiring her to handle packages that she thought were over 20 pounds and by not providing her with help when she had to use a heavy gurney. Given potential various inferences from the evidence, a reasonable factfinder could find that the USPS had failed to accommodate Wise’s need to avoid handling heavy items. Therefore, the district court erred in granting summary judgment on the failure-to-accommodate claim.
Wise also challenged the district court’s summary judgment on the retaliation claim, arguing that the district court erred in concluding that she had failed to present a prima facie case. Wise relied on circumstantial evidence of retaliation, so the Tenth Circuit considered (1) whether Wise presented a prima facie case of retaliation; (2) if she did, whether the USPS provided a legitimate, nonretaliatory reason for the firing; and (3) if the USPS provided a legitimate, nonretaliatory reason for the firing, whether Wise showed that the USPS’s stated reason was pretextual. Even assuming that Wise presented a prima facie case, the USPS satisfied its burden at the second step because her supervisor said that he fired her for walking off the job, which is a neutral, nonretaliatory explanation for the firing. The district court didn’t reach the pretext issue, but the Tenth Circuit considered it because it was fully briefed on appeal, the parties had an opportunity to develop the record, and the issue is a question of law. Wise argued that USPS’s reason for firing her was pretextual because (1) the USPS gave conflicting explanations for her termination, (2) her supervisors failed to accommodate her just weeks before the firing, and (3) only 16 days elapsed between the requests for an accommodation and the firing. However, these arguments don’t support a reasonable finding of pretext. Accordingly, the district court properly granted summary judgment to the USPS on the retaliation claim.
The grant of summary judgment on the retaliation claim was affirmed. The grant of summary judgment on the failure-to-accommodate claim was reversed and the case was remanded for further proceedings.