Dexler v. Tisch

• Decision Date: 20 May 1987
• Docket Number: Civ. No. H-83-333.
• Citation: 660 F. Supp. 1418
• Parties: Ilan G. DEXLER v. Preston Robert TISCH.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut

660 F. Supp. 1418

Ilan G. DEXLER v. Preston Robert TISCH.

Civ. No. H-83-333.

United States District Court, D. Connecticut.

May 20, 1987.

Robert B. Yules, Martin Wheeler, Yules & Yules, Hartford, Conn., for plaintiff.

W. Philip Jones, Asst. U.S. Atty., Hartford, Conn., David G. Karro, David P. Cybulski, Office of Labor Law, U.S. Postal Service, Washington, D.C., for defendant.

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION

BLUMENFELD, Senior District Judge.

This is an action for damages and injunctive relief brought under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, 29 U.S.C. §§ 791 et seq. Plaintiff Ilan Dexler, who suffers from achondroplastic dwarfism, applied for employment as a distribution clerk through the United States Postal Service's program for the severely handicapped, but was not hired. He claims that as a certified handicapped person, the Postal Service discriminated against him. After hearing testimony, reviewing the documentary evidence, and considering the authority and arguments presented in the briefs, this court finds in favor of the defendant.

Facts

Achondroplastic dwarfism is a growth disorder that affects all four extremities and results in short limbs and short stature. Because he suffers from this condition, Mr. Dexler is four feet, five inches tall (53 inches), and has a vertical reach of 58 and ½ inches. Though his exact horizontal reach was never put into evidence, his horizontal reach is substantially less than average. Mr. Dexler's trunk is of normal size and average strength. He weighs approximately 200 pounds.

Mr. Dexler is a high school graduate with significant work experience in private mailrooms of various commercial enterprises. Presently, he is the mailroom supervisor at United Bank and Trust's Corporate Center in Newington, Connecticut, where he supervises several employees and participates in sorting and distributing the mail. That mailroom processes approximately five to ten thousand pieces of mail daily. Last year Mr. Dexler earned nearly $18,000 at that job.¹

I. Chronology of Events

In the spring of 1982, Mr. Dexler contacted his vocational rehabilitation counselor to inquire about the possibility of obtaining employment with the post office. His counselor, Mr. Richard Carlson, wrote a letter to Ms. Doris Giles, an employment officer with the Postal Service, indicating that Mr. Dexler was a severely handicapped person under federal regulations and recommending him for an entry level position as a clerk or mail handler.

In July of 1982, Ms. Giles learned of an upcoming opening for the position of distribution clerk in the New Britain Post Office. She arranged for Mr. Dexler and his counselor to tour the post office on July 20, 1982. During that visit, she explained the Postal Service's program for the severely handicapped. If it was found that Dexler was qualified for the job and that his handicap could be reasonably accommodated, he would undergo an 89-day trial period as a casual employee. A casual employee works as needed and is paid $5 per hour. When a casual employee is called in to work, he or she is guaranteed a minimum of two hours. There is no guarantee of the number of hours of work that will be assigned per week, nor is there any guarantee of overtime. If Mr. Dexler completed the trial period satisfactorily, he would become a career employee working on a part-time, flexible basis, or, if there was some doubt about his ability to perform, he might be asked to do a second trial period. Part-time, flexible employees are called in on an as-needed basis. They are guaranteed four hours of work when called in, but are not given any guarantee as to the number of weekly work hours or overtime hours. At some point, Mr. Dexler would be changed to a full-time employee.

In the course of the tour of the facility, Mr. Dexler performed a number of tasks. He dumped a bag of mail onto a sorting table, he pushed various vehicles used to convey mail, and he put trays of mail on the highest shelf of a tray cart, but he had some difficulty in reaching the top bin of a sorting case. After the tour, Mr. Dexler's counselor completed a certification form, which stated that he had reviewed the job requirements, visited the job site, and that Mr. Dexler was capable of doing the job if the duty stations were lowered or if he used a step stool.

In August the postmaster of the New Britain Post Office interviewed Mr. Dexler for the distribution clerk position. The postmaster told Mr. Dexler that he thought Dexler could not do the job, and that accommodating his handicap would require restructuring of the whole operation. Thereafter, Mr. Dexler received a letter from the post office confirming its position that it could not reasonably accommodate his handicap.

In September Mr. Dexler wrote a letter to the Equal Employment Opportunity Counselor for the Northeast Regional Office of the Postal Service alleging discrimination, and an informal investigation was begun. During the course of this investigation, Mr. George May, the Director of Employee Relations for Hartford Section Center of the Postal Service, and Ms. Doris Giles, the Employment Officer familiar with Mr. Dexler's case, reviewed the possibility of accommodating Mr. Dexler's condition. They spent most of a day at the New Britain Post Office evaluating the various duties of a distribution clerk and considering possible accommodations. They concluded that the New Britain Post Office could not reasonably accommodate Mr. Dexler as a distribution clerk. The EEO Counselor was not successful in resolving the case informally.

On November 13, 1982, Mr. Dexler filed a formal Equal Employment Opportunity complaint. After an EEO investigation, the complaint was denied. Thereafter, on April 27, 1983, Mr. Dexler filed the complaint in this court.

In the course of this litigation, during the fall of 1985, the Postal Service informed Mr. Dexler of job openings for distribution clerks and window/distribution clerks in the main postal facility at Weston Street in Hartford, Connecticut. After a tour of the facility, an explanation of the hours and wages, and a medical examination, Mr. Dexler was offered a choice of the jobs. To accommodate Mr. Dexler's handicap, he would be assigned to one sorting case where he would work from a large platform approximately eight inches above the ground.²

For several months the Postal Service held the Hartford distribution clerk job open for Mr. Dexler, since he repeatedly rescheduled his orientation meeting. In December of 1985, after he was informed that the Postal Service could no longer keep the position open due to the heavy Christmas volume of mail to be processed, Mr. Dexler told Ms. Giles that he would be unable to take the position because an illness in the family required that he be out of town.³

II. Nature of the Work

The duties of a distribution clerk at the New Britain Post Office are somewhat different from those of a distribution clerk at the Hartford office. New Britain is an associate post office and operates as an affiliated branch of the main office in Hartford. It receives mail intermittently each day from the Hartford office in large quantities, which must be processed according to numerous strict deadlines. In many instances, one step of the processing must be completed before it is efficient to begin the next step. Thus, the New Britain office has what might be described as a "task-oriented" approach. It cannot maintain an assembly-line operation because it does not have a continuous flow of mail coming into the post office. Distribution clerks therefore have a wide variety of duties, and are not assigned to any single particular task.

The various tasks that must be accomplished are as follows. Early in the morning, trucks arrive from Hartford loaded with mail in bulk containers ("BMCs" or "Post Cons").⁴ These containers must be unloaded from the trucks, and other containers put in their place. The containers are then moved to a dumping station, where the bags or trays of mail they contain are unloaded. Next, the bags must be dumped on sorting tables and sorted into trays. As trays are filled, they are placed on various carts to be moved to a distribution center.

After this initial sorting into trays, the carts are moved to areas where the mail that is now in trays can be sorted more specifically into large cases.⁵ These cases are generally about four feet wide with a wing on one side. Much of the work of a distribution clerk is this specific sorting, but because of the intermittent flow of mail from the Hartford facility and the deadlines for processing, a clerk could not be assigned to do an eight-hour shift consisting only of sorting at the cases. In the course of a shift, a typical distribution clerk will sort at three different cases, in addition to his other duties.

During the sorting of letters, the mail is periodically passed down the row of eight cases to be put into trays. When the "pass" command is given, the clerks in the row take the sorted mail out of the designated slot and pass it down the line, each adding sorted mail to the stack lined up on his or her arm. At the end of the line (usually of eight clerks), the sorted mail is put into a tray.

The trays of sorted mail are once again loaded on various conveyances to be moved to the area for mail carriers. Some of this sorted mail is taken to the post office box areas, where it is sorted and put in the appropriate boxes.

Even though this operation is task-oriented, not every clerk does each task daily. The work is generally divided on the basis of seniority, with the junior workers doing the largest amount of the heavy manual labor such as loading and unloading trucks and conveyances. Junior employees also must be trained for sorting, which is done for about two hours a day over a three-to-four-month period.

The Hartford office, in contrast to the New Britain office, runs more of an assembly-line operation. The volume and...