Equal Employment Oportunity Comm'n v. Sara Lee Corp.

• Decision Date: 01 November 2000
• Docket Number: No. 00-1534,00-1534
• Citation: 237 F.3d 349
• Parties: (4th Cir. 2001) EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SARA LEE CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellee. . Argued:
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 349

237 F.3d 349 (4th Cir. 2001)

EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SARA LEE CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 00-1534.

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS, FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT.

Argued: November 1, 2000.

Decided: January 9, 2001.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Florence.

Patrick Michael Duffy, District Judge. (CA-99-522) COUNSEL ARGUED: Robert John Gregory, Senior Attorney, EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Robin Elizabeth Shea, CONSTANGY, BROOKS & SMITH, L.L.C., Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: C. Gregory Stewart, General Counsel, Philip B. Sklover, Associate General Counsel, Lorraine C. Davis, Assistant General Counsel, EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMIS-SION, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Cara Yates Crotty, CON-STANGY, BROOKS & SMITH, L.L.C., Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee.

Before WILKINSON, Chief Judge, WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge, and Frank J. MAGILL, Senior Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, sitting by designation.

Affirmed by published opinion. Chief Judge Wilkinson wrote the opinion, in which Judge Williams and Senior Judge Magill joined.

OPINION

WILKINSON, Chief Judge:

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) appeals a decision holding that Vanessa Turpin was not disabled under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The EEOC further appeals the holding that if Turpin was disabled, Sara Lee Corporation satisfied its duty of reasonable accommodation under the ADA. Because the facts of this case show that Turpin was not substantially limited in a major life activity, and because the ADA does not require an employer to deviate from its nondiscriminatory seniority policy in order to accommodate a worker, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

I.

Vanessa Turpin began work for Sara Lee at its Salem, Virginia plant in 1989. In 1992, Turpin began to experience seizures in her sleep. Although she saw a neurologist and took medication, Turpin occasionally experienced nocturnal and daytime seizures. According to Turpin's doctor, she experienced seizures about once or twice a week. The nocturnal seizures were characterized by shaking, kicking, salivating, and, on at least one occasion, bedwetting. After having these seizures, Turpin would feel tired in the morning, as if she did not sleep at all. Turpin typically was unaware that she was having seizures, and would sometimes wake up with bruises on her arms and legs.

The daytime seizures were milder in nature. Over the time period at issue in this appeal, four or five of the daytime seizures happened during work itself. Turpin could feel the seizure about to start, and would sit elsewhere until the episode passed. The seizures normally lasted a couple of minutes. During these seizures, Turpin began shaking, her face took on a blank expression, and she became unaware of and unresponsive to her surroundings. After the seizure ended, Turpin was able to return to whatever work she had been performing before the episode started. These seizures also sometimes caused Turpin to suffer memory loss. Turpin would occasionally forget to take her medication, or forget where she was going in her car. Turpin's neurologist, Dr. Joseph Healy, diagnosed her condition as complex partial seizure disorder (epilepsy). This type of epilepsy does not normally affect motor activity, and does not cause major motor or grand mal seizures. Nevertheless, Dr. Healy believed that her seizures would be a "life-long phenomena." Still, Turpin continued to perform her job and take care of her son.

In 1996, Turpin transferred to a plant in Florence, South Carolina after Sara Lee shut down the Salem factory. At Florence, she worked the first shift as an Auto Packaging Machine Operator. In 1997, Sara Lee closed its Hartsville, South Carolina plant. The company offered the Hartsville workers the opportunity to transfer to another plant. Under Sara Lee's seniority policy, the former Hartsville workers would keep their seniority, and thus were entitled to displace current workers at the Florence plant. This seniority policy is an internal policy of Sara Lee and is not part of a collective bargaining agreement. A more senior worker from Hartsville wanted Turpin's shift, meaning that Turpin would be forced to take the second or third shift if she wanted to keep her job.

The worker who replaced Turpin had twenty years more seniority than Turpin herself. When Turpin learned that she would be displaced from her shift, she contacted the Human Resources manager to request that she be allowed to remain on the first shift. Turpin presented a letter from her doctor stating that transferring shifts would cause a disturbance of her sleep pattern, and thus worsen her seizures. Sara Lee's doctor stated that the change in shift would not disrupt Turpin's sleep patterns so long as Turpin worked a non-rotating shift, whether it be the first, second, or third shift.

Sara Lee decided not to let Turpin bypass the normal seniority policy. The company gave Turpin three options, all based upon the seniority policy: 1) move to the second or third shift; 2) go on layoff status with recall rights for twelve months (including the right to be recalled to a first shift position should one become available); or 3) take a severance package. Turpin chose the severance package. Turpin then filed a charge of discrimination with the EEOC, which found cause and filed a complaint in February of 1999. Sara Lee moved for summary judgment, which the district court granted. The district court found that Turpin was not disabled within the meaning of the ADA, and that if she was, Sara Lee satisfied its burden of reasonable accommodation.

II.

A.

The EEOC argues that at the time of the relevant events, Vanessa Turpin was disabled within the meaning of the ADA.

The ADA requires that in order to be disabled under the Act, a person must have "A) a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities of such individual; B) a record of such an impairment; or C) [been] regarded as having such an impairment." 42 U.S.C. § 12102(2). The EEOC argues that Turpin is disabled under the "substantially limits" prong of the definition. See id. at § 12102(2)(A). The phrase "substantially limits" sets a threshold that excludes minor impairments from coverage under the ADA. See Sutton v. United Air Lines, 527 U.S. 471, 486-88 (1999).

Vanessa Turpin suffered from seizures due to epilepsy. A person with epilepsy can certainly be disabled under the ADA. See, e.g., Otting v. J.C. Penney Co., 223 F.3d 704, 709-10 (8th Cir. 2000). Indeed, epilepsy is one of the disabling conditions that Congress contemplated when it passed the ADA. See, e.g., H.R. Rep. No. 485(II), 101st Cong., 2d Sess. 52, reprinted in 1990 U.S.C.C.A.N. 303, 334 ("epilepsy" can be an impairment that substantially limits a major life activity). The analysis does not stop at this level of generality, however. See Sutton, 527 U.S. at 487-88. The determination of whether a person is disabled is an individualized inquiry, particular to the facts of each case. Sutton, 527 U.S. at 483; Ennis v. National Ass'n. of Bus. and Educ. Radio, Inc., 53 F.3d 55, 59 (4th Cir. 1995). Thus, the cru cial question in this case is whether Turpin's epilepsy substantially limited one of her major life activities.

Relying on Vande Zande v. Wisconsin Dep't of Admin., 44 F.3d 538, 543-44 (7th Cir. 1995), the EEOC first asserts that Turpin's disability can be established under an "intermittent manifestation" theory of disability. The EEOC misreads Vande Zande. In that case, the employee was already disabled because she was paralyzed. This paralysis caused pressure ulcers which manifested themselves on an intermittent basis. But the court did not hold that the pressure ulcers themselves were a disability. Rather, they were symptoms of the underlying disability itself. Vande Zande, 44 F.3d at 544. Here, the alleged intermittent manifestation (the seizure) is the disability itself. To hold that a person is disabled whenever that individual suffers from an occasional manifestation of an illness would expand the contours of the ADA beyond all bounds. An intermittent manifestation of a disease must be judged the same way as all other potential disabilities. The statute is explicit -to be disabled under the ADA, a person must have a substantial limitation on a major life activity.

The EEOC next maintains that Turpin was substantially limited in three different major life activities -sleeping, thinking, and caring for herself. The record, however, simply does not support the assertion that Turpin was substantially limited in any major life activity. First, it is true that Turpin did not sleep well every night. Still, Turpin frequently slept through the night without any seizures. When she did have seizures, many times she did not even remember having them.

More importantly, the EEOC has failed to prove that Turpin's lack of sleep was worse than the quality of sleep of the general population. See Pack v. Kmart Corp., 166 F.3d 1300, 1306 (10th Cir. 1999) (ADA plaintiff held not disabled because of failure to show that her sleep was significantly worse than the average person in the general population); Colwell v. Suffolk County Police Dep't, 158 F.3d 635, 644 (2d Cir. 1998) (same). Indeed, the EEOC's own regulation states that a plaintiff's significant restriction in a major life activity must be "compared to the condition, manner, or duration under which the average person in the general population can perform that same major life activity." 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(j)(2) (2000). Many individuals fail to receive a full night of sleep. The EEOC did not show that Turpin's seizures substantially limited her major life activity of sleeping in a manner different from the average...