Squibb v. Memorial Medical Center

• Decision Date: 16 August 2007
• Docket Number: No. 06-2389.,06-2389.
• Parties: Mary R. SQUIBB, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MEMORIAL MEDICAL CENTER, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

497 F.3d 775

Mary R. SQUIBB, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MEMORIAL MEDICAL CENTER, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 06-2389.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued May 21, 2007.

Decided August 16, 2007.

Patricia L. Hayes (argued), Springfield, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Ellen E. McLaughlin (argued), Seyfarth Shaw, Chicago, IL, for Defendant-Appellee.

Before RIPPLE, WOOD and EVANS, Circuit Judges.

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge.

Mary Rios Squibb brought this action against her former employer, Memorial Medical Center ("Memorial"), claiming violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA" or "Act") and the Illinois Workers Compensation Act ("IWCA"). The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Memorial on the ADA claims and declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the IWCA state law claims. Ms. Squibb now appeals the grant of summary judgment on the ADA claims. For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

I BACKGROUND

A. Facts

Ms. Squibb began working for Memorial in 1990 as a certified nurse assistant and remained there after obtaining her license as a registered nurse. Between 1993 and 2000, Ms. Squibb sustained three back injuries in the course of her duties. Each injury occurred when she had attempted to lift or move a patient. While recovering from her first injury, Ms. Squibb had certain temporary lifting restrictions and an attendant corrective surgery. Eventually, she was released to work without restrictions.

After the third back injury in 2000, she again required surgery and a significant recovery period. Prior to the surgery, her physician, Dr. Stephen Pineda, placed her on several restrictions. She was not to lift in excess of 5 pounds, push or pull, sit or stand for extended periods, or bend or stoop. In April 2001, following a surgery in December 2000, she was returned to "light-duty" work. She could lift no more than 10 pounds and could work for only four hours each day. Ms. Squibb stated in her deposition that she sometimes was required to push a wheelchair while on "light-duty," but that she generally did not return to patient care duties and received help with patient lifting whenever necessary. During this period she received an additional temporary assignment within her restrictions.

Ms. Squibb gradually was advanced to working five days per week and was permitted by her physician to return to patient care. However, the ten-pound lifting restriction initially remained in place, and, accordingly, she remained in temporary, clerical, non-nursing positions until August 2002. Unhappy with her inability to work in a patient care nursing capacity, Ms. Squibb requested a further release. Dr. Pineda loosened her lifting restriction to allow lifts of up to fifty pounds, but informed her that she likely had reached maximum post-surgical improvement. Her restriction would be permanent.

With this additional release on the lifting restrictions, Ms. Squibb was transferred to a temporary light-duty RN position. By December 2002, however, the restriction was confirmed to be permanent and Memorial was notified. Memorial, in turn, communicated to Ms. Squibb that she would have to look for a permanent position that would accommodate her permanent restrictions because she would no longer be held in temporary assignments. Ms. Squibb characterizes this communication as a termination; Memorial claims she was placed on leave. At the end of January 2003, Ms. Squibb filed an EEOC charge in which she claimed that she was terminated because of her disability in violation of the ADA.

In January 2003, Ms. Squibb underwent a functional capacity evaluation ("FCE") required by Memorial to assess her physical abilities before another appropriate position could be found for her. The results of the FCE revealed that Ms. Squibb could kneel, crouch, stand or sit "continuously," that she could twist "frequently" and that she could bend "occasionally." R.40-15 at C. Her lifting maximum in the test was roughly 25-30 pounds, but she could do this only "rarely." Id. In continuous lifting or carrying, she was limited to roughly 5-10 pounds. She could push and pull upwards of fifty pounds rarely, but, again, the FCE revealed that, on a continuous basis, she would be limited to significantly lighter loads of about 15 pounds. The written text accompanying the FCE stated that Ms. Squibb was in a "[d]econditioned state which limited [her] material handling and climbing abilities." Id. at B. It otherwise reported that she was "currently functioning at a light physical demands level, well under the 50# permanent restriction placed on her by her physician." Id.

Following this test, which concluded that her "abilities do not match the physical demands of a registered nurse at Memorial," id., Ms. Squibb began working as a patient placement coordinator, a position which she was told would fit her physical limitations. In the approximately three months that she held the position, between February and May 2003, she claims that she twice was asked to perform duties outside her physician-imposed restrictions. She missed several days of work for health-related reasons during this period and she provided physicians' notes for these absences. She received lukewarm performance ratings in this position, and, apparently in response to her absences, Memorial placed her on administrative leave lasting until April 2004.

Ms. Squibb brought the present action at the end of April 2004, but her employment odyssey with Memorial continued. In June 2004, Ms. Squibb provided another letter from Dr. Pineda that stated that she could return to light duty with exact limits to be determined by another FCE. Memorial responded by asking whether the lifting restrictions remained in place; at Ms. Squibb's request, no additional medical information was provided.

She applied for additional positions in the field of local medical review policy, for which she believes she was qualified, and for one additional position recommended by Memorial's human resources personnel as a clinical case manager. Memorial eventually filled one of the local medical review policy positions with an employee it contends had more relevant experience; it eliminated the additional position without filling it. Memorial offered Ms. Squibb the clinical case manager position, but she declined because she believed the job requirements to be outside her physical restrictions. In January 2005, Memorial terminated Ms. Squibb for failure to return from leave when offered the clinical case manager position.

B. District Court Proceedings

Ms. Squibb's ten-count complaint against Memorial alleged that Memorial had violated the ADA at various times during her employment relationship. The bases for her claims were essentially that Memorial: (1) failed to reasonably accommodate her disability; (2) wrongfully terminated her in December 2002 because of her disability or perceived disability, and terminated her again in January 2005 because she refused a position that she was physically unable to perform because of her disability; (3) refused to hire her for either of the two local medical review policy positions because of her disability; (4) refused to hire her for the local medical review policy positions in retaliation for her January 2003 EEOC charge and for filing the instant lawsuit in April 2004; and (5) terminated her in January 2005, also in retaliation for her charge and her lawsuit. She also alleged that she was wrongfully discharged in violation of the IWCA in December 2002 and January 2005.

Memorial moved for summary judgment on all claims. The district court granted that motion on the ADA claims and declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the IWCA claims. The court ruled that: (1) Ms. Squibb was not disabled; (2) Ms. Squibb was not a qualified individual with a disability because no reasonable accommodation would allow her to perform the essential functions of the patient care RN positions she sought; and (3) Ms. Squibb had not produced direct evidence of discrimination in support of her retaliation charge nor had she met the requirements of a prima facie case under the indirect method. Ms. Squibb timely appeals the entry of judgment against her.

II DISCUSSION

We review the district court's grant of summary judgment de novo, construing all facts and inferences in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, here, Ms. Squibb. Timmons v. Gen. Motors Corp., 469 F.3d 1122, 1125 (7th Cir.2006). Summary judgment is appropriate where the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with any affidavits, show that there is no genuine issue of material fact, and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c); Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322-23, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986). Once the movant has met this burden, in order to survive summary judgment, the nonmoving party must make a sufficient showing of evidence for each essential element of its case on which it bears the burden at trial. Celotex Corp., 477 U.S. at 322-23, 106 S.Ct. 2548. The nonmoving party cannot succeed by resting on its pleadings; it must provide evidence on which a jury could reasonably find in its favor. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986).

A.

Ms. Squibb claims that Memorial violated the ADA by failing to reasonably accommodate her disability, failing to hire her because of her disability or perceived disability and terminating her because of her disability or perceived disability. The ADA's prohibition on employment discrimination provides,

No covered entity shall discriminate against a qualified individual with a disability because of the disability of such individual in regard to job application procedures, the hiring, advancement, or discharge of employees, employee compensation, job...