Norville v. Staten Island Univ. Hosp.

• Citation: 196 F.3d 89
• Decision Date: 01 August 1999
• Docket Number: Docket No. 98-9583
• Parties: (2nd Cir. 1999) WENDY J. NORVILLE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. STATEN ISLAND UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL, Defendant-Appellee
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

Page 89

196 F.3d 89 (2nd Cir. 1999)

WENDY J. NORVILLE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. STATEN ISLAND UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL, Defendant-Appellee.

Docket No. 98-9583

August Term, 1999

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

Argued: August 13, 1999

Decided: November 02, 1999

Appeal from an order and final judgment of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Tucker L. Melanon, Visiting Judge) granting defendant-appellee judgment as a matter of law on plaintiff-appellant's race and age discrimination claims and entering judgment in favor of defendant, pursuant to a jury verdict, on plaintiff's disability claim.

Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded.

[Copyrighted Material Omitted]

[Copyrighted Material Omitted]

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] GLENN GREENWALD, Greenwald, Christoph & Holland, P.C., New York, NY, (Mona Holland, on the brief), for plaintiff-appellant.

MICHAEL J. VOLPE, Clifton, Budd & DeMaria, LLP, New York, NY (Kevin J. McGill, Daniel C. Moreland, on the brief), for defendant-appellee.

Before: CALABRESI, CABRANES and SOTOMAYOR, Circuit Judges.

SOTOMAYOR, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiff-appellant Wendy Norville brought this action under the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq. (1994 & Supp. 1999) ("the ADA"), the New York State Human Rights Law, N.Y. Exec. Law 295 (McKinney 1993 & Supp. 1999), and the New York City Administrative Code, N.Y.C. Admin. Code 8-107 (1998), claiming that the defendant-appellee, Staten Island University Hospital ("SIUH"), discharged her because of her race, her age and her disability. During trial, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Tucker L. Melanon, of the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, sitting by designation) granted judgment as a matter of law in favor of the defendant on Norville's race and age claims. The jury returned a verdict in SIUH's favor on Norville's disability claim, and the court entered an order dismissing all claims on November 9, 1998. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the district court's grant of judgment as a matter of law on the race and age discrimination claims, but find that the court did not properly instruct the jury with regard to Norville's disability claim. We therefore vacate the jury's verdict on the ADA claim and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

BACKGROUND

Wendy Norville, a 56-year-old black woman, began working as a nurse at SIUH in 1981. On November 3, 1993, she suffered a spinal injury while working in the hospital's North Site neurology unit. As a result of the injury, Norville began an extended leave of absence in January 1994.

In November 1994, Norville sought to return to work. She submitted two doctors' notes stating that she was capable of resuming her employment, with the qualification that she should avoid heavy lifting, stretching and bending. Because her previous job as a neurology nurse was no longer available, Norville began working with personnel administrators to find a different job within the hospital that she could perform with her disability. SIUH subsequently extended Norville's leave of absence beyond its original one-year limit while it attempted to identify such a position.

In December 1994 and January 1995, Ann Conelli, the hospital's Recruitment Manager, informed Norville that nursing positions were available at the hospital's South Site. Norville chose not to apply for these positions, however, because moving to the South Site would have caused her to lose all of the seniority she had accumulated at the North Site between 1981 and 1994. The nurses at SIUH's two sites are represented by two separate unions, each with its own collective bargaining agreement and seniority system. The respective collective bargaining agreements make personnel rights and benefits a function of seniority, and further provide that seniority depends on the length of a nurse's membership in the particular union. As a result, had she accepted a position that required her to move from the North Site to the South Site and thus change unions, Norville would have sacrificed all of the seniority rights she held in the North Site union. This in turn would have led to a freeze in her pension benefits, increased vulnerability to layoffs, and fewer rights with respect to new openings and assignments.

Conelli also proposed part-time positions, but Norville, who had worked full-time prior to her disability, refused to pursue these options as well. Instead, in late March or early April 1995, Norville learned about a vacant nursing position in the North Site radiology department and requested permission to interview for that job. Margaret DiAlto, SIUH's Employee Relations Manager, informed Norville that if she could produce a doctor's note stating that she could perform the essential functions of the radiology nurse job, the hospital would be willing to offer her the position. In response, Norville submitted a note from her neurologist dated April 28, 1995, stating that Norville was under his care for lumbar radiculopathy and that she would be able to return to work in May 1995. She interviewed with John Monahan, the hospital's Director of Radiology, but was rejected in favor of Robert Laureano, a 38-year-old Hispanic nurse at SIUH. Monahan testified at trial that he chose Laureano because Laureano's intravenous insertion skills were superior to Norville's.

SIUH terminated Norville's employment on May 16, 1995, citing her extended leave and the hospital's inability "to place [her] in a position in which [she was] able to perform the essential functions orone that [she was] willing to assume." Joint App. at 326 (emphasis in original). Norville then filed a timely complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, claiming that the hospital had violated the ADA by terminating her employment based on her disability and by failing to make reasonable accommodations. After receiving a right-to-sue letter, Norville filed the instant action, charging disability discrimination under the ADA as well as disability, race and age discrimination in violation of state and city civil rights laws.

On July 29, 1998, United States District Judge Raymond J. Dearie of the Eastern District of New York denied the defendant's motion for summary judgment on all claims. The case was then transferred for trial to Judge Tucker L. Melanon, of the Western District of Louisiana, sitting by designation. At the close of the evidence, the court granted SIUH's motion pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(a) for judgment as a matter of law on Norville's race and age discrimination claims, but denied the Rule 50 motion with respect to the disability claim. The jury subsequently returned a verdict for SIUH on Norville's disability claim, and the court entered judgment for the hospital on all claims on November 9, 1998. This appeal followed.

DISCUSSION

I. Judgment as a Matter of Law

We review de novo a district court's grant of judgment as a matter of law under Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(a). See This Is Me, Inc. v. Taylor, 157 F.3d 139, 142 (2d Cir. 1998). In assessing whether judgment as a matter of law is proper, the court must view all evidence and draw all inferences in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. See EEOC v. Ethan Allen, Inc., 44 F.3d 116, 119 (2d Cir. 1994). We will affirm a grant of judgment as a matter of law only if no reasonable factfinder could return a verdict against the movant. See id. In the instant case, therefore, we must examine whether the evidence at trial provided any basis on which a juror reasonably could have found that Norville was a victim of race or age discrimination. ¹

The procedure for demonstrating both age and race discrimination under the state and city antidiscrimination laws follows the familiar McDonnell Douglas order of proof for claims brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e et seq. (1994 & Supp. 1999). SeeLeopold v. Baccarat, Inc., 174 F.3d 261, 264 n.1 (2d Cir. 1999) (state law); Landwehr v. Grey Adver., Inc., 622 N.Y.S.2d 17, 18 (1st Dep't 1995) (city law). First, the plaintiff must establish a prima facie case of discrimination by showing that 1) she is a member of a protected class; 2) she was qualified for her position; 3) she suffered an adverse employment action; and 4) the action occurred under circumstances giving rise to an inference of discrimination. See De La Cruz v. New York City Human Resources Admin., 82 F.3d 16, 20 (2d Cir. 1996) (citing McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802 (1973)). Once the plaintiff has established a prima facie case, the burden shifts to the employer to articulate a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the adverse action. See id. If the employer meets its burden, the plaintiff then must prove that the articulated justification is in fact a pretext for discrimination. See id. (citing St. Mary's Honor Center v. Hicks, 509 U.S. 502, 51011 (1993)).

A. Norville's Race Discrimination Claim

Norville's race discrimination claim rests on her allegation that the hospital refused to accommodate her disability despite having made job accommodations for two disabled white nurses. There is no dispute that as a black woman who was terminated from her job, Norville satisfied the first and third elements of her prima facie case, i.e., she is a member of a protected class who suffered an adverse employment action. We need not decide whether she was qualified for the radiology position, however, because Norville's claim ultimately fails on the fourth prong: she did not produce evidence sufficient to support a reasonable inference that her termination was the result of race discrimination.

A plaintiff may support an inference of race discrimination by demonstrating that similarly situated employees of a different race were treated more favorably. See Shumway v. United Parcel...