Andrews v. GEO Grp., Inc.
| Decision Date | 28 September 2012 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 10-cv-02605-MSK-MJW |
| Parties | KIM ANDREWS, Plaintiff, v. THE GEO GROUP, INC., Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Colorado |
Honorable Marcia S. Krieger
THIS MATTER comes before the Court on a Motion to Dismiss and Motion for Summary Judgment1 (#63) filed by the Defendant the GEO Group, Inc. ("GEO"), with supplemental authority (#76, #78), to which the Plaintiff Kim Andrews responded (#70) and GEO replied (#74). Having considered the same, the Court FINDS and CONCLUDES the following.
The following facts are either undisputed or, where disputed, taken in the light most favorable to Ms. Andrews.
A. Background
GEO operates an immigration detention facility in Aurora, Colorado, housing aliens awaiting deportation. Ms. Andrews, a black female, was employed as a Detention Officer at the facility from 2000 until her termination on October 23, 2008. Detention Officers perform a range of tasks at the facility, regularly rotating through various assignments every few months. Up to the events at issue here, Ms. Andrews consistently received positive performance evaluations and job commendations.
Ms. Andrews suffers from a variety of chronic medical conditions, including lupus, fibromyalgia, depression, and migrane headaches. These conditions can result in temporary "flare ups" of debilitating weakness, pain, and fatigue. As a result, since 2003, Ms. Andrews has been permitted to take intermittent medical leaves, pursuant to the Family and Medical Leave Act ("FMLA"), 29 U.S.C. § 2615 et seq., as her symptoms warrant.
Although Ms. Andrews recites and relies upon facts occurring as early as 2006, the Court elects to begin its factual recitation in 2008, and will address earlier events only to the extent relevant in its analysis. In January 2008, GEO advised Ms. Andrews that she would be reassigned from the Intake Unit to a Housing Unit assignment. She inquired as to the reasons for that decision. In a written response to that inquiry, GEO explained that "the intake post . . . requires the assigned officer to be present for duty on a consistent basis." It pointed out thatbetween mid-October 2007 and January 8, 2008, "you have missed 13 work days,"2 which "hampered" GEO's operations by requiring it to reassign intake-qualified employees from other assignments and require other employees to work overtime. GEO concluded that "a more permanent solution had to be made in order to maintain some type of consistency in the Intake Department," and thus, concluded that reassignment of Ms. Andrews to the housing unit would "meet your needs and meet the needs of the facility."
On January 11, 2008, only a few days later, Ms. Andrews suffered an on-the-job injury to her shoulder. Her doctor released her to work with a lifting restriction, and GEO informed her that it could accommodate those restrictions via a "transitional light duty" assignment to the dorm unit. Ms. Andrews thus returned to work on or about January 14, 2008.
On January 19, 2008, she suffered another on-the-job injury, this time injuring her neck and back. However, it appears that Ms. Andrews did not immediately report this injury. Rather, she went to a hospital emergency room for treatment on January 20, 2008, and reported to GEO's worker's compensation medical provider on January 22, 2008, complaining of continued pain. This January 22 visit was the first time that GEO was notified of her January 19 injury. Upon learning of the injury, GEO placed Ms. Andrews on paid administrative leave, pending an investigation into the circumstances of the January 19 injury and a determination of whether she could perform the duties of her position with the restrictions imposed by her doctor (including the question of whether she could "defend herself" against a violent inmate).3 The record issomewhat unclear as to the extent of GEO's investigation into her ability to perform the duties of her position,4 but within a few days, GEO decided that it did not have any positions that met her limitations. Thus, it placed her on worker's compensation leave, where she would not receive her regular pay but would receive worker's compensation benefits.
At some point in or about March 2008, Ms. Andrews filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage & Hour Division, complaining that her transfer from the Intake Department to the Housing Unit, allegedly due in part to absences she took under the FMLA, violated her FMLA rights. On March 19, 2008, the Department of Labor wrote to GEO, informing it of Ms. Andrews' complaint and inquiring about certain information. On March 25, 2008, GEO wrote to Ms. Andrews, advising her that "your current leave of absence will expire on April 7, 2008," and directed her to advise GEO of her intent to return to work and to provide a Fitness for Duty Certification from her doctor. On March 27, Ms. Andrews responded that she did intend to return, but also requested a 30-day extension of her leave. That same date, Ms. Andrews filed a charge of discrimination with the EEOC, alleging race discrimination, disability discrimination, and retaliation, reciting some of the events described above, as well as others. GEO received a copy of that charge on March 31. That same day, it denied her request for an extension of her leave and directed her to return to work on April 8.
Also on March 31, the Warden of the facility drafted a memo recommending that Ms. Andrews be terminated. That memo summarized the events leading up to Ms. Andrews' current leave, contains a section entitled "Summary: Ms. Andrews has filed a complaint with the Department of Labor for FMLA violation" and "has filed a charge of discrimination," and then states: "Recommendation: Ms Andrews continues to be covered under workman's compensation indefinitely, I am recommending she be terminated." The Warden apparently re-drafted the memo on April 8, 2008, omitting the references to Ms. Andrews' complaints and appending some text to the recommendation section, which now reads: "I am recommending she be terminated for not being able to perform the essential duties required by the Detention Officer Job Description." On April 16, 2008, the Human Resources department notified the Warden that (Correspondence from others in the Human Resources department in the ensuring months make mention of Ms. Andrews having a "termination pending.")
Meanwhile, Ms. Andrews reported for work on April 8. She explained her medical restrictions to the supervisor on duty, and he inquired whether she would be able to work an assignment in the control or lobby areas. Ms. Andrews replied that she could. The supervisor then contacted the Warden, who instructed him to have Ms. Andrews report to the facility's medical provider to obtain "a new notice of restrictions before being allowed to work." Ms. Andrews stated that she had visited the provider the day before and was advised of the same restrictions, but agreed to comply with the request. It is not entirely clear from the record what occurred thereafter, but it appears that Ms. Andrews continued to remain out of work for severalmore months.
On August 13, 2008, Ms. Andrews provided GEO with a doctor's release to return to work. On September 5, 2008, GEO wrote to Ms. Andrews, informing her that it could accommodate her restrictions and that she could return to work on September 8, 2008. Ms. Andrews apparently returned to work at that time, although the nature of the "restrictions" that she was subject to and the assignment she was given consistent with those restrictions is not clear from the record.
On or about September 30, 2008, Ms. Andrews' doctor (apparently a different doctor than the one from August 2008) released her to return to work, albeit with certain "permanent restrictions" on the tasks she could perform. On or about October 14, GEO sent a copy of those restrictions, along with a job description, to Dr. Quick, apparently a physician with GEO's worker's compensation medical provider, asking Dr. Quick to opine as to whether or not Ms. Andrews could perform the functions in the job description given her restrictions.5 Dr. Quick responded that Ms. Andrews could not perform the following functions (and, conversely, stated that she could perform all other functions):
On October 23, 2008, based on Dr. Quick's findings, and apparently without any further discussion or investigation, GEO terminated Ms. Andrews' employment, stating that "you are no longer able to perform the essential functions of a detention officer" and that "there are no reasonable accommodations that will permit you to perform the duties of a detention officer with the physical limitations provided by Dr. Quick."
In the meantime, on October 9, 2008, agents from the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("BICE"), the agency that contracts with GEO to house the detainees, sought to interview Ms. Andrews as part of an investigation into whether staff at GEO had used racial slurs to address detainees. Ms. Andrews gave a sworn statement that she had "second hand information" from detainees and other officers that...
To continue reading
Request your trial