Blockel v. J.C. Penney Co., Inc.

• Decision Date: 23 July 2003
• Docket Number: No. 02-1927.,No. 02-1946.,02-1927.,02-1946.
• Citation: 337 F.3d 17
• Parties: Laura M. BLOCKEL, Plaintiff, Appellee, v. J.C. PENNEY COMPANY, INC., Defendant, Appellant. Laura M. Blockel, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. J.C. Penney Company, Inc., Defendant, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

337 F.3d 17

Laura M. BLOCKEL, Plaintiff, Appellee, v. J.C. PENNEY COMPANY, INC., Defendant, Appellant.

Laura M. Blockel, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. J.C. Penney Company, Inc., Defendant, Appellee.

No. 02-1927.

No. 02-1946.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard May 7, 2003.

Decided July 23, 2003.

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Nicholas A. O'Kelly with whom Michael E. Satti, Holly Quackenbush Darin, and Satti & Ryan, LLP, were on brief for J.C. Penney.

Marwan S. Zubi with whom Paul Peter Nicolai and Nicolai Law Group were on brief for Blockel.

Before SELYA, Circuit Judge, COFFIN and PORFILIO,^* Senior Circuit Judges.

COFFIN, Senior Circuit Judge.

Defendant-appellant J.C. Penney Company claims multiple errors in the trial and post-judgment orders regarding the disability discrimination claims of Laura Blockel, a former J.C. Penney employee. Blockel also appeals, alleging error in the district court's calculation of prejudgment interest. Finding no errors, we affirm the judgment below.

I. Background

A reasonable jury could have found the following facts in support of its verdict in favor of Blockel.

Laura Blockel was hired by J.C. Penney as a "merchandise manager trainee" in 1985. She was promoted in the following years, receiving favorable evaluations and merit pay increases, until she reached the position of "senior merchandise manager" at the Sturbridge, Massachusetts, store in 1988. As a senior merchandise manager, Blockel was responsible for purchasing and managing the merchandise in a particular area of the store, ultimately the men's department, and supervising customer service in that area. She routinely received scores of 2 (on a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being the highest) on her annual performance evaluations.

In 1995, Blockel was diagnosed with a seizure disorder, major depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. In 1997, she was also diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, schizo-affective disorder, and dissociative disorder. On several occasions in 1996 and 1997, Blockel was hospitalized due to her illnesses for up to ten days at a time. Her symptoms included seizures, severe depression, catatonic states, auditory and visual hallucinations, delusions, and suicidal ideation. She attempted suicide more than once.

In order to control these symptoms, Blockel was treated with a variety of anti-psychotic, anti-anxiety, anti-depressant, and mood stabilizing drugs. Her treating psychiatrist, Dr. Zamir Nestelbaum, testified that without these medications, Blockel would not have been able to care for herself or work throughout 1996 and 1997. Blockel visited both a psychologist and Dr. Nestelbaum approximately once a week after her diagnoses.

Stress related to heavy work hours was adjudged by Dr. Nestelbaum to exacerbate Blockel's symptoms. Consequently, he provided Blockel with notes for her employer several times in 1996 and 1997, setting restrictions on the number of hours she should work each day or week. At times she was limited to six hours of work per day. The manager of the Sturbridge store, James Eltringham, consistently honored Blockel's accommodation requests.

With these restrictions, Blockel was able to perform all the essential functions of her job. In fact, she received scores of "2" on her performance evaluations for the years 1995 and 1996. In 1996 and 1997, she was invited to take part in the "Entity Team," a group of five senior managers selected for their superior merchandising skills.

In May 1997, Lois Rainero replaced Eltringham as the manager of the Sturbridge store. Rainero had previously held the position of "district personnel manager" and had received training in handicap discrimination and reasonable accommodations.

In September 1997, Blockel suffered a seizure at work and was taken to the hospital by ambulance. She remained hospitalized for a week. Upon returning to work, Blockel told Rainero that she had been admitted to the psychiatric ward, suffered from mental illnesses, and was heavily medicated. She also explained that she felt she would be able to continue fulfilling her job responsibilities as long as her work hours were limited. She provided Rainero with a note from Dr. Nestelbaum stating that she should not work more than forty hours per week.

The forty-hour restriction was adhered to in October, but with the holiday season approaching, Blockel feared that the hours expected of her would escalate. To ensure that her limitations would be taken into account, she offered to draft the holiday schedule, a task she did not customarily perform. Blockel's proposal limited her scheduled hours to forty per week, but it was rejected by Rainero as leaving the store short on coverage. The revised schedule, drafted by another senior merchandise manager, assigned Blockel between thirty-seven-and-a-half and forty-nine hours per week. This schedule began October 26.

On November 12, Blockel met with Rainero to remind her of the restriction. Rainero responded that Blockel was not being a team player, that she would be a burden on the other senior merchandise managers, and that her career at J.C. Penney would effectively be over if she did not work her scheduled hours during the holiday season.

The following day, Blockel left a note for Rainero, to which Rainero never responded, stating that she loved her job and did not want to be a burden on her fellow managers. She concluded that she would try to work the schedule as posted, despite its requirement that she work more than forty hours per week. Ultimately, Blockel worked between fifty and sixty hours weekly during November and December.

Simultaneously, Blockel's symptoms worsened significantly. Between November 1997 and January 1998, her condition was progressively downgraded by her doctors. Dr. Nestelbaum attributed her deterioration to the high number of hours she was working and her anxiety that reducing her hours would impact her future at J.C. Penney. In early January 1998, Blockel was hospitalized for ten days. She took sick leave, informed Rainero that she would not be returning, and applied for long-term disability benefits.

Sometime in January, district manager Phyllis Seberger met with Rainero to discuss the evaluations of the senior merchandise managers, which were finalized in late January. In late February 1998, Blockel was asked to come to the store for a meeting of the managers. Blockel protested that she was out on sick leave and not able to attend but was informed that it was mandatory.

At that meeting, Blockel was presented with her completed evaluation, in which she was rated a "3". In contrast with previous years, Blockel was not given the chance to review the evaluation and provide feedback before it was finalized. After the evaluation was presented to Blockel, Seberger informed her that a reduction in force was being implemented at J.C. Penney and that, because of her "3" rating, she was being terminated. Later, Blockel retrieved her actual sales numbers and discovered errors in the computation of her sales and profit figures that formed the basis for the evaluation and made her performance appear less favorable.

After her termination, Blockel's sick pay and application for long-term disability were denied by J.C. Penney because she was no longer an employee. J.C. Penney eventually reversed its decision and granted her long-term disability benefits. Blockel also was granted federal Social Security disability benefits.

In April 1998, Blockel filed claims before the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) alleging that J.C. Penney violated the protections found in Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 151B. Due to delays in the MCAD process and the impending expiration of the statutes of limitations on her claims, Blockel filed suit in state court in 2000. J.C. Penney subsequently removed the lawsuit to federal district court.

In March 2002, a jury rendered a verdict in Blockel's favor, finding that J.C. Penney failed to reasonably accommodate her and that it engaged in retaliatory harassment. The jury awarded Blockel compensatory and punitive damages, as well as back pay, in the aggregate amount of $563,700. The district court subsequently awarded her attorney's fees and costs, as well as $28,564.43 in prejudgment interest on the compensatory damages portion of the award.

J.C. Penney raises multiple issues in its appeal while Blockel makes a single claim in her cross-appeal.

II. Notice of Appeal

Preliminarily, Blockel protests that this court does not have jurisdiction to hear any of J.C. Penney's claims due to a deficiency in J.C. Penney's designation of the order from which it appeals.

On March 21, 2002, the jury returned its verdict in favor of Blockel. On March 25, the district court entered judgment for Blockel, including prejudgment interest. On April 3, Blockel filed a motion for attorney's fees and costs as well as additional prejudgment interest. On April 8, J.C. Penney filed a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 50(b), which, as a recognized type of post-judgment motion, extended the time for appealing the March 25 judgment. See Fed. R.App. P. 4(a)(4)(i).

On June 27, the district court issued a memorandum and order denying J.C. Penney's Rule 50(b) motion and granting Blockel's motion for fees and costs, but denying her request for additional prejudgment interest. On July 2, the court entered a judgment that read: "Pursuant to the memorandum and order of the court entered on June 27, 2002, judgment for the plaintiff with attorney's fees awarded in the amount of $71,514.67 and costs awarded in the amount of $4,706.11." On July 18, J.C. Penney filed a notice of appeal, specifying the July 2 entry as the judgment appealed from. See Fed. R.App. P. 3(c)(1)(B) (requiring an appellant to "designate the judgment, order, or part thereof being appealed" in the notice of appeal).

Blockel maintains that the July 2...