Spivey v. Beverly Enterprises

• Decision Date: 30 November 1999
• Docket Number: No. 99-6166,99-6166
• Citation: 196 F.3d 1309
• Parties: (11th Cir. 1999) Michelle SPIVEY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. BEVERLY ENTERPRISES, INC., d.b.a. Boaz Health & Rehabilitation Center, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 1309

196 F.3d 1309 (11th Cir. 1999)

Michelle SPIVEY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. BEVERLY ENTERPRISES, INC., d.b.a. Boaz Health & Rehabilitation Center, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 99-6166.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

Nov. 30, 1999.

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.(No. 98-00500-CV-TMP-M), Terry M. Putnam, Mag. Judge.

Before BLACK and WILSON, Circuit Judges, and RONEY, Senior Circuit Judge.

BLACK, Circuit Judge:

Appellant Michelle Spivey brought this action against her employer, Appellee Beverly Enterprises, Inc., alleging that she was discriminated against in violation of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, 42 U.S.C. 2000e(k), after being terminated due to a limitation imposed by her physician because of her pregnancy. The district court granted Appellee's motion for summary judgment after finding that Appellant had not established a prima facie case of either disparate treatment or disparate impact discrimination. We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

Appellant was employed on June 13, 1996, as a certified nurse's assistant at the Boaz Health and Rehabilitation Center, which is owned and operated by Appellee. Her primary responsibilities at the Boaz facility were to lift and reposition patients, assist with patient baths and meals, and provide general patient care. Soon after discovering she was pregnant, Appellant developed concerns that lifting a patient on her assigned hall who weighed almost 250 pounds could cause harm to her unborn child. As a result, she requested assistance in lifting this patient. She was told by Appellee to obtain a doctor's verification of the restriction and she consequently obtained a restriction from her obstetrician which imposed a lifting limitation of 25 pounds.

Upon receipt of the medical restriction, Appellee notified Appellant she would not be provided with an accommodation due to the company's modified duty policy. Appellee's policy stated that employees were excused from meeting their job responsibilities only if they qualified for modified duty, which was available exclusively to employees who suffered from work-related injuries.¹ Under this policy, Appellant could be excused from lifting patients only if she were injured on the job. After being told that she could not be excused from her job responsibilities under Appellee's modified duty policy, Appellant consequently attempted to have the lifting restriction removed by her obstetrician. The doctor, however, refused this request. As a result of the medical restriction that precluded her from lifting more than 25 pounds, Appellant was terminated. On July 28, 1997, Appellant was rehired by Appellee.

Appellant instituted this action on March 3, 1998, claiming that Appellee's provision of modified duty for employees injured on the job, but not for pregnant employees, violated the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, 42 U.S.C. 2000e(k). Appellant argued that her termination caused her to lose seniority and related benefits. Appellant alleged both disparate treatment and disparate impact claims. We review de novo the district court's grant of a motion for summary judgment on these claims. Edwards v. Wallace Community College, 49 F.3d 1517, 1520 (11th Cir.1995).

II. DISCUSSION

In 1978, Congress amended Title VII by enacting the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA), which provides that prohibitions of discrimination "because of sex" or "on the basis of sex" include discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions. 42 U.S.C. 2000e(k) (1994). This act declared that women affected by pregnancy "shall be treated the same for all employment-related purposes, including receipt of benefits under fringe benefits programs, as other persons not so affected but similar in their ability or inability to work...." Id.

There are two types of discrimination actionable under Title VII, disparate treatment and disparate impact. Although proof of discriminatory intent is necessary for a plaintiff to succeed on a claim of disparate treatment, a claim of disparate impact does not require evidence of intentional discrimination. See Armstrong v. Flowers Hosp., Inc., 33 F.3d 1308, 1313 (11th Cir.1994).

A. Disparate Treatment

Appellant has not offered direct evidence that Appellee intended to discriminate against pregnant employees. Appellant must therefore present circumstantial evidence from which an inference of intentional discrimination can be drawn. See id. In order to prevail on a disparate treatment claim based on circumstantial evidence, Appellant is required to first establish a prima facie case that creates a rebuttable presumption of unlawful discrimination. See id. Appellant must meet four requirements in order to establish a prima facie case of discrimination: (1) she is a member of a group protected by Title VII; (2) she was qualified for the position or benefit sought; (3) she suffered an adverse effect on her employment; and (4) she suffered from a differential application of work or disciplinary rules. See id. at 1314. The only two requirements in dispute are whether Appellant was qualified and whether she suffered from a differential application of work rules.

There is no dispute that Appellant was no longer qualified to work as a nurse's assistant. The lifting restriction imposed on Appellant clearly prevented her from performing the responsibilities required of this position. Appellant argues, however, that she should have been given the accommodation of modified duty because she was as capable of performing the duties required of a modified duty assignment as non-pregnant employees who were injured on the job. Appellee, however, was under no obligation to extend this accommodation to pregnant employees. The PDA does not require that employers give preferential treatment to pregnant employees. See, e.g., Lang v. Star Herald, 107 F.3d 1308, 1312 (8th Cir.1997); Garcia v. Woman's Hosp. of Texas 97 F.3d 810, 813 (5th Cir.1996); Troupe v. May Department Stores Co., 20 F.3d 734, 738 (7th Cir.1994). Appellee was therefore free to provide an accommodation to employees injured on the job without extending this accommodation to pregnant employees.

Appellant also has failed to establish that she suffered from a differential application of work rules. In Byrd v. Lakeshore Hospital, 30 F.3d 1380 (11th Cir.1994), this Court held that an employer violates the PDA when it denies a pregnant employee a benefit generally available to temporarily disabled workers holding similar job positions. See id. at 1383-84. In this case, the benefit Appellant seeks is not generally available to temporarily disabled workers. To the contrary, Appellee offers modified duty only to a clearly identified sub-group of workers-those workers who are injured on the job.

The correct comparison is between Appellant and other employees who suffer non-occupational disabilities, not between Appellant and employees who are injured on the job. Under the PDA, the employer must ignore an employee's pregnancy and treat her "as well as it would have if she were not pregnant." Piraino v. International Orientation Resources, Inc., 84 F.3d 270, 274 (7th Cir.1996). Ignoring Appellant's pregnancy would still have left Appellee with an employee who suffered from a non-occupational injury. Appellee, as per its policy, was therefore entitled to deny Appellant a modified duty assignment as long as it denied modified duty assignments to all employees who were not injured on the job.

This position is consistent with Urbano v. Continental Airlines, Inc., 138 F.3d 204 (5th Cir.1998), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 119 S.Ct. 509, 142 L.Ed.2d 422 (1999). In Urbano, the Fifth Circuit addressed a pregnancy discrimination claim factually similar to the one at issue. The employer in Urbano had a policy that granted light duty assignments only to employees who suffered an injury on the job. See id. at 205. The Fifth Circuit held it was not a violation of the PDA for the employer to deny light duty assignments to pregnant employees even though employees who were injured on the job were provided with such an opportunity. See id. at 206. The Fifth Circuit found that the plaintiff, a pregnant employee, had not established a prima facie case of discrimination because she failed to demonstrate that she was qualified for light duty and that she was treated differently under Continental's light duty policy than other employees with non-occupational injuries. See id. at 206-07.²

We therefore hold that an employer does not violate the PDA when it offers modified duty solely to employees who are...