A school district groundskeeper who was forced to resign after she was injured on the job and who could not provide an unrestricted medical release to return to work, proved the district discriminated against her because it regarded her as disabled in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held in Johnson v. Paradise Valley Unified School District, 251 F.3d 1222 (9th Cir. 2001). The Court reinstated a jury’s verdict, which the trial court had overturned, in favor of the employee for $237,345.
Linda Johnson (Johnson) had been employed by Paradise Valley School District for nearly 13 years, first as a custodian and then as a groundskeeper, when she was severely injured on the job in 1995. Though she obtained a medical release to return to work, the release restricted her from prolonged walking or standing in the same position. Johnson presented evidence that her supervisor, who had seen her injury, informed her that the District “did not take limited releases” and would not allow her to return to work without a “full release.” The supervisor denied Johnson additional leave time and told her to either resign or be fired. She encouraged Johnson to resign because it “might look better on her resume” and the supervisor would then write a letter of recommendation for her. The supervisor also told Johnson she could apply for another job if she obtained a full release at some point in the future.
Johnson resigned and within a month obtained a full medical release. Over the next few months, she applied for 13 separate positions with the District, was interviewed for only one position, and was not hired for any. Each job application contained a note by a District administrator that the application should not be processed. The former supervisor claimed this was because of Johnson’s attitude in the single interview she had been given and because Johnson had had “attendance problems” in her 14-year employment with the District. Johnson had been promoted twice during the same timeframe, however, and her performance evaluations were uniformly positive in all areas other than attendance, for which she had never been disciplined.
Johnson sued, claiming the District had discriminated against her, in violation of the ADA, because she was disabled and because the District “regarded her as disabled.” The trial court found Johnson was not physically impaired as defined by the ADA, and refused to submit her claim of such impairment to the jury. The jury was allowed, however, to consider whether the District regarded Johnson as disabled and discriminated against her as a result. The jury found that the District had done so and awarded Johnson $237,345. The trial court set the verdict aside.
The Court of Appeals reversed. It held the evidence was sufficient for the jury to find that, even though Johnson was not physically disabled within the meaning of the ADA, the District had discriminated against her because it regarded Johnson as being physically unable to participate in major life activities such as walking, working, and standing.
The Court explained that a major purpose of the ADA is to prevent discrimination against individuals rejected from a job because of the “myths, fears and stereotypes” associated with disabilities. The fact that the evidence showed Johnson was not physically impaired as defined by the ADA only gave support to her claim that the District had acted “irrationally rather than on the basis of the true facts and rational economic calculation.”
The District’s refusal to consider Johnson for 13 different maintenance and grounds-keeping jobs and its enforcement of a “no partial release” policy for employees in any job category tended to show that the District regarded Johnson and other injured employees as unable to perform any job, the Court stated. There also was evidence from which a jury could conclude the supervisor’s explanation for not processing Johnson’s job applications was false, or “pretextual,” the Court said, and could be considered as affirmative evidence of the District’s motivation in rejecting Johnson’s applications. The Court found the trial court committed reversible error by rejecting the jury’s verdict, and it reinstated the judgment in Johnson’s favor.