England v. Enbi Indiana, Inc.

• Decision Date: 14 January 2000
• Docket Number: No. IP 98-0660-C-B/S.,IP 98-0660-C-B/S.
• Citation: 102 F.Supp.2d 1002
• Parties: Debie D. ENGLAND, Plaintiff, v. ENBI INDIANA, INC., Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Indiana

Page 1002

102 F.Supp.2d 1002

Debie D. ENGLAND, Plaintiff, v. ENBI INDIANA, INC., Defendant.

No. IP 98-0660-C-B/S.

United States District Court, S.D.Indiana, Indianapolis Division.

January 14, 2000.

B. Gregory A. Stowers, Stowers Weddle & Henn, Indianapolis, IN.

J. Lee McNeely, NcNeely Stephenson Thopy & Harrold, Shelbyville, IN.

ENTRY GRANTING DEFENDANT'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

BARKER, Chief Judge.

Plaintiff, Debie England ("England"), alleges that Defendant, ENBI Indiana, Inc. ("ENBI"), discriminated against her, in violation of Title I of the Americans With Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12101 et seq. ("ADA") and the Indiana Workers Compensation Act, Ind.Code §§ 22-3-1-1 et seq. ("IWCA"). Specifically, England alleges that ENBI terminated her from her position as press operator because of her alleged disability, that ENBI failed to reasonably accommodate her alleged disability, and that her termination was in retaliation for England pursuing her rights under the IWCA. ENBI responds that: England is not disabled under the ADA; if she was disabled under the ADA she was not qualified for the press operator position; the accommodations sought by England were not reasonable; and there is no evidence to support her retaliation claim. ENBI requests Summary Judgment, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56. For the reasons discussed below, ENBI's motion must be GRANTED.

Factual Background

England is a 38 year-old woman with no formal education beyond the ninth grade. See Pl.'s Statement of Additional Material Facts ("Additional Material Facts") ¶¶ 38, 39.¹ After working as a cook and at various other unskilled manual labor positions, England began working for ENBI on May 10, 1993. See id. ¶¶ 40, 41. England worked in ENBI's Assembly Grind Department for approximately twenty months before transferring in January, 1995, to become a press operator in ENBI's Press Department. See id. ¶¶ 41, 42. Except for periods where she was on light-duty as a result of the injuries discussed below, England continued as a press operator in the Press Department until the day she was put on lay-off status on April 23, 1997. See ENBI's Statement of Material Facts ("Material Facts") ¶ 33.

At the time England was placed on layoff status, the Press Department consisted of approximately seventeen presses and employed eleven press operators on England's shift. See Additional Material Facts ¶¶ 47, 57. These seventeen presses included five different press types: the Voltaire press, the LLF press, the Separator Pad press, the Book Mold press, and the Lexmark press. See id. ¶ 49. Presses are named after the different types of mold or material that they use; the Voltaire presses use a Voltaire mold, the Book Mold presses use a book mold. See id. ¶ 55. Although there were only five kinds of presses, some presses had multiple molds associated with them, for example, the Book Mold presses fit both a light and heavy mold and the Voltaire presses utilize five different loading trays, two of which are heavier than the others and weigh greater than twenty-five pounds. See id. ¶¶ 56, 89-90; Material Facts ¶ 25.

ENBI utilized a rotation system for staffing the presses within the Department, although the exact parameters of it are somewhat disputed by the parties. There is no dispute that the press operator position did not require any special skills or training. See Material Facts ¶ 2. Each worker was assigned to work a specific press for an entire shift. See Deposition of Debie England ("England Dep.") at 60-61. Each press utilized a mold that could change from day to day in size or type depending upon production needs. The worker loaded materials into the press and waited for a period of two to eight minutes while the press completed its function. See Additional Material Facts ¶¶ 59-60. This process is repeated ten to twelve times per shift, up to one hundred times a day. See England Dep. at 59. Lifting is an essential function of working any of the presses and some of the molds weighed more than fifteen pounds. See Material Facts ¶¶ 22, 25.

Of the five different press types, ENBI asserts that the press operator position required workers to rotate through four on a daily basis: the Voltaire press, the LLF press, the Separator Pad press, and the Book Mold press. See Material Facts ¶¶ 20, 21.² ENBI utilizes this rotation for several reasons. One reason is to provide the flexibility that the Press Department needs to respond to changes in product demand. See Deposition of Julie Metz ("Metz Dep.") at 43. More importantly, press operators at ENBI face a high incidence of repetitive motion injuries and ENBI believes that the rotation system reduces the number of these injuries. See id.

England disputes ENBI's asserted rotation requirement for the press operator position. She appears to disagree with what presses were involved in the asserted rotation rather than whether ENBI required press operators to rotate among them. England points out that not all of the press operators were required to rotate to all of the presses. See Additional Material Facts ¶ 61. As we have previously noted, the Book Mold presses have two molds, one which is heavy and one which is light. See id. ¶ 56. Due to the weight of the heavy mold used in the Book Mold press, ENBI did not require any of its female press operators to work with the it, regardless of whether they were disabled or not. See Additional Material Facts ¶¶ 63-70; Deposition of Sandy Phares ("Phares Dep") at 11-12. ENBI concedes that the Book Mold presses utilizing the heavy mold were not a part of the alleged rotation. See Reply Brief of ENBI at 8. England also cites one press operator, Sandy Phares, who worked primarily with the LLF presses and the Voltaire presses only, rotating only twice over four months to work a light Book Mold press and never working on a Separator Pad press. See Additional Material Facts ¶¶ 66-69 (citing Phares Dep. at 5, 6, 9). However, Phares was a press operator for only four months and during that time had not been trained on the Separator Pad press; she began working on the Book Mold press once it came into her rotation. See Phares Dep. at 9-11. Although England has successfully established that the Book Mold press, utilizing the heavy mold, was not part of the general press operator rotation, it is undisputed that the general rotation for press operators, notwithstanding a minor deviation with respect to Phares, consisted of the Voltaire presses, the LLF presses, the Separator Pad presses, and the Book Mold presses, utilizing the light mold.

England's tenure as a press operator was marked by repeated injuries to her wrists and arms. See Material Facts ¶ 3; Additional Material Facts ¶ 71. In January, 1996, a Dr. Idler diagnosed England with bi-lateral carpal tunnel syndrome ("CTS") and informed England that she needed surgery on her right wrist, left wrist and elbow. See Additional Material Facts ¶¶ 72, 73. Dr. Idler performed surgery on her right wrist in late January, 1996, and performed surgery on her left wrist and elbow in March, 1996. See id. ¶ 74, 78; Material Facts ¶ 4, 7. Following each of these surgeries, England returned to ENBI with a temporary five-pound lifting restriction. See Material Facts ¶ 5, 8; Additional Material Facts ¶¶ 76, 77, 79.³ In response to these restrictions, when England returned after the first surgery, ENBI placed her on a light-duty assignment, involving her sorting parts instead of working the press machines, and continued this assignment through several months after the second surgery. See Material Facts ¶ 6, 10; Additional Material Facts 78, 80. This light duty program is intended to be a temporary assignment, available to ENBI employees for up to twelve weeks. See id. ¶ 14.⁴

In May or June of 1996, Dr. Ingler released England to return to her regular press operator position without any lifting restrictions. See Additional Material Facts ¶ 81. However, after returning to work without restrictions, England once again experienced pain in her right elbow. See id. ¶ 82; Material Facts ¶ 9. In August, 1996, Dr. Idler performed a third surgery, this time on England's right elbow, after which she again returned to a light-duty assignment with a temporary five-pound lifting restriction. See Additional Material Facts ¶ 83, 84; Material Facts ¶ 9, 10. In October, 1996, the temporary restrictions were again lifted, and England returned to her regular job as a press operator. See Additional Material Facts ¶ 86; Material Facts ¶ 10.

Thereafter, although England experienced no pain while on light-duty assignments, upon her return to the press operator position, she began to feel the pain from her CTS and in December, 1996 reported to her doctor. See Additional Material Facts ¶ 87; Material Facts ¶ 11, 12. England believed that this pain resulted from her using the heavier loading trays, weighing more than twenty-five pounds, that were part of the Voltaire presses. See Additional Material Facts ¶ 88. This complaint prompted Dr. Idler to schedule England for a functional capacity evaluation by the Hand Rehabilitation Center for Working Hands ("Rehabilitation Center") in January, 1997, see Additional Material Facts ¶ 93, which it performed on January 14, 1997. See Metz Dep. Ex. D, Functional Capacity Evaluation ("Evaluation").

ENBI provided the Rehabilitation Center with a form describing the press operator position, a description that appears on the front of the functional evaluation form. See Additional Material Facts ¶¶ 122, 123. This description stipulates that the press operator is required to: "rotat[e] every two weeks ... lift 26 lb. maximum [and] once every hour carry 2 feet (10% of day), push/pull 100 lb 20 foot (5% of day), lift 1 lb ten times per hour, ...." Evaluation at 1.⁵ The evaluation concludes that England is able to perform the press operator position with limited accommodations. See Additional Material Facts ¶ 124....