Ensley-Gaines v. Runyon

Citation100 F.3d 1220
Decision Date20 November 1996
Docket NumberNo. 95-1038,95-1038
PartiesKim Ensley-Gaines, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Marvin Runyon, Postmaster, Defendant-Appellee
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (6th Circuit)

On Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan

Barbara M. Harvey (argued and briefed), Detroit, MI, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Vanessa A. Miree, United States Postal Service, Office of Field Legal Service, Birmingham, MI, Elizabeth Larin, Asst. U.S. Attorney (argued and briefed), Detroit, MI, for defendant-Appellee.

Mary Anne M. Helveston (briefed), Detroit, MI, for Amicus Curiae.

Before: MERRITT and COLE, Circuit Judges; ECHOLS, District Judge.*

ECHOLS, District Judge.

I.

Plaintiff Kim Ensley-Gaines, an employee of the United States Postal Service, filed a formal complaint of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") on September 26, 1991, claiming that the Postal Service discriminated against her in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, 42 U.S.C. Section(s) 2000e to 2000h-6, as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, 42 U.S.C. Section(s) 2000e(k), by refusing to grant her benefits available to temporarily disabled employees while she was pregnant. After conducting a hearing, an administrative law judge found that the Postal Service discriminated against her on the basis of her sex and pregnancy. The Postmaster General issued a final decision rejecting the administrative law judge's findings, and Plaintiff appealed the decision to the EEOC on December 4, 1992. The EEOC upheld the Postal Service's final decision in a written decision issued on June 30, 1993, and found that Plaintiff failed to prove discrimination by her employer.

Plaintiff filed the present action on August 11, 1993. At the completion of discovery, Defendant filed a motion for summary judgment which the district court granted on December 28, 1994. On December 29, 1994, Plaintiff filed a timely notice of appeal. For the reasons stated herein, the judgment of the district court is hereby REVERSED and REMANDED to the district court for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

II.

Within the Postal Service, there are several job functions know as "crafts," including mailhandlers and clerks. Plaintiff was employed within the mailhandler craft as a full-time, Level 4 career mailhandler at the Royal Oak, Michigan General Mail Facility assigned permanently to the mail canceling operation. Her duties as a mailhandler included lifting and dumping trays of letters onto a conveyer belt, operating cancelling machines, rewrapping damaged mail, and performing other duties associated with the movement and processing of bulk mail.

Each craft is represented by its own union and labor agreement. As a mailhandler, Plaintiff was subject to a Collective Bargaining Agreement ("Agreement") between the Postal Service and the National Postal Mail Handler's Union, which governed the rights, duties, and responsibilities of the Postal Service and the employees covered by that Agreement. Under the Agreement, employees who are temporarily unable to perform their duties may submit written requests for alternative assignments.1 Once such a request is submitted, supervisors are directed to "show the greatest consideration for . . . employees requiring light duty or other assignments, giving each request careful attention, and reassign such employees to the extent possible in the employee's office."2 Agreement, Art. 13.2.C.

Although Defendant recognizes that under the Agreement it must attempt to accommodate employees on temporary light-duty assignment, it asserts that it is under no obligation to provide a guaranteed number of work hours to such employees.3 Defendant also asserts that not all employees temporarily unable to perform their duties are governed solely by the Agreement. In particular, Defendant points out that the Postal Service distinguishes between light duty and limited duty. "Limited duty" is available to those workers injured on the job, while "light duty" is available to employees whose injuries are not employment-related. Defendant asserts that its obligation to provide limited-duty assignments is based not on the Agreement but on the Federal Employee Compensation Act ("FECA"), 5 U.S.C. Section(s) 8101-8193, which provides compensation for employees who suffer employment-related injuries. Under this scheme, an employee with a job-related injury is entitled to compensation regardless of her or his ability to work, and, as such, employer agencies make every effort to find work within the limited-duty employee's restricted capabilities.

On July 3, 1991, Plaintiff requested full-time, temporary light-duty status under the Agreement due to medical limitations imposed by her doctor as a result of her pregnancy. In support of her request, Plaintiff submitted a medical statement from her physician. The limitations placed upon Plaintiff by her physician included a fifteen-pound lifting restriction and a four-hour limit on standing and sitting. On August 2, 1991, Postmaster Daniel Presilla granted her a light-duty assignment for four hours a day.

Although admitting that her request for light-duty status was granted, Plaintiff complains that she was assigned to four hours of standing work only and not allowed to continue working while sitting down for the balance of the day so she could work a full eight-hour day. Plaintiff asserts that, had she been allowed to perform duties four hours each day while sitting, she then would have been able to work the other four by standing in the usual manner.4 Therefore, Plaintiff claims that she was given light-duty status in name only because she was not permitted to sit while working, and after standing for the four hours allowed by her pregnancy restriction, she was sent home either on sick leave, annual leave, or without pay. According to Plaintiff, although she was granted light-duty status, Postmaster Presilla never intended to attempt in good faith to find a full day's work for her.

Plaintiff alleges that she and her union representative, Mary Misuraca, suggested a variety of tasks, both inside and outside of the mailhandler craft, that Plaintiff was qualified to perform and would be able to perform with the restrictions imposed upon her by her pregnancy. Plaintiff also contends that Ms. Misuraca recommended small accommodations to her work schedule and assignments that would have enabled Plaintiff to work eight hours per day without a disadvantage to other regular employees, but management ignored these suggestions.

In addition, Plaintiff identifies a number of nonpregnant, temporarily disabled mailhandlers who were treated more favorably than she was when requesting alternative duties. For instance, Plaintiff claims that, for at least three hours each evening as well as sporadically throughout the afternoon, full-time employees not on light-duty status were permitted to sit in chairs while sorting the mail. Furthermore, Plaintiff claims that Michael Clark, an employee on light-duty status with an identical fifteen-pound lifting restriction and a standing limitation of only two hours per day, was accommodated with sitting work on twelve of thirty actual workdays, or forty percent of the time.5 Plaintiff also identified three mailhandlers assigned to limited-duty status because of on-the-job injuries who regularly received full-time work because of accommodations made by Defendant. Finally, Plaintiff claims that employees with other work restrictions were sometimes accommodated by reassigning those employees to positions in other crafts.

III.

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 ("Title VII"), 42 U.S.C. Section(s) 2000e to 2000h-6, an employer may not discriminate against an employee on the basis of the employee's gender. In General Electric Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U.S. 129 (1976), however, the United States Supreme Court ruled that discrimination on the basis of pregnancy did not violate the mandate of Title VII prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender. Id. In 1978, Congress responded to the Supreme Court's decision in Gilbert by amending Title VII to include section 2000e(k). This section, referred to as the Pregnancy Discrimination Act ("PDA"), explicitly overrode the Gilbert decision by providing as follows:

The terms "because of sex" or "on the basis of sex" include, but are not limited to, because of or on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions; and women affected by pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions shall be treated the same for all employment-related purposes, including receipt of benefits under firing benefit programs, as other persons not so affected but similar in their ability or inability to work.

42 U.S.C. Section(s) 2000e(k) (1994) (emphasis added). Accordingly, the PDA transforms improper distinctions based on pregnancy or potential pregnancy into overt sex discrimination violative of Title VII. Grant v. General Motors Corp., 908 F.2d 1303, 1307 (6th Cir. 1990).

The Supreme Court also has established a clear framework for analyzing Title VII cases which may also be applied to those cases arising under the PDA. See Asher v. Riser Foods, Inc., No. 92-3357, 1993 WL 94305, at * 4 (6th Cir. March 30, 1993) (applying the test formulated in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802 (1973) to a Title VII suit brought pursuant to the PDA). First, the plaintiff has the burden of proving a prima facie case of discrimination. McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 802; Texas Dep't of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 252-53 (1981). The burden of production then shifts to the defendant to articulate a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its actions. McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 802; Manzer v. Diamond Shamrock Chemicals Co., 29 F.3d 1078, 1082 (6th Cir. 1994) (holding that once the plaintiff has made a...

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