Kalskett v. Larson Mfg. Co. of Iowa, Inc.
| Decision Date | 01 June 2001 |
| Docket Number | No. C99-3079 MWB.,C99-3079 MWB. |
| Citation | 146 F.Supp.2d 961 |
| Parties | Margaret L. KALSKETT, Plaintiff, v. LARSON MANUFACTURING COMPANY OF IOWA, INC., Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Iowa |
Mark D. Sherinian, Sherinian & Walker Law Firm, Des Moines, IA, for Plaintiff.
George E. Martin, Berens & Tate PC, Omaha, NE, for Defendant.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION ........................................................... 965
A. Factual Background .................................................. 965
B. Procedural Background ............................................... 969
II. LEGAL ANALYSIS ......................................................... 969
A. Summary Judgment Standards ......................................... 969
B. Kalskett's ADA Claim ............................................... 971
1. Is Judicial Estoppel Appropriate as to Kalskett's Apparently
Inconsistent Statements? ..................................... 972
2. Was Kalskett qualified to perform the essential functions of her
job? ......................................................... 975
a. team leader ................................................. 975
b. assembly line position ...................................... 978
3. Other Positions that Kalskett Claim s She Was Entitled To ...... 980
4. Does the Direct Threat Defense Include Threats to One's Own
Health and Safety? ........................................... 981
C. Kalskett's State Law Claim ........................................ 986
III. CONCLUSION .............................................................. 987
This action involves allegations of employment discrimination on the basis of a disability brought by plaintiff Margaret L. Kalskett ("Kalskett") against her former employer defendant Larson Manufacturing Company of Iowa, Inc. ("Larson") under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 ("ADA"), 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq., and the Iowa Civil Rights Act of 1965 ("ICRA"). Larson has filed a Motion for Summary Judgment, seeking judgment as a matter of law on Kalskett's federal and state law claims.
Kalskett was hired by Larson as a temporary worker on June 10, 1991. On or about February 17, 1992, Kalskett's employment status with Larson was changed from a temporary, non-benefitted employee to a full-time benefitted employee. Kalskett was employed by Larson between June 10, 1991, and September 11, 1998. Larson manufactures storm doors at two facilities in Lake Mills, Iowa. During the time that Kalskett was employed by Larson, she served in various positions on the assembly/production line as well as a team leader of an assembly line, known as Work Station # 3.
Kalskett suffered a back injury while working on the assembly/production line at Larson on December 4, 1995. She underwent surgery as a result of this injury in January of 1996. Kalskett returned to work in February of 1996, and was placed on light duty to accommodate her temporary restrictions during her recovery. During this time period, Kalskett had use of a conference room at Larson to perform stretching exercises that were recommended by her doctor. Thereafter, in the Spring of 1996, Kalskett was provided a release from her doctor which permitted her to try working in a regular production position. Larson permitted Kalskett to work wrapping windows, however, within an hour Kalskett approached her crew leader, Ron Kvale, and indicated that it was too soon for her to be wrapping windows. Kvale proceeded to ask Kalskett which positions she thought she could perform, and she listed the following three positions on the line that she believed she could perform: (1) screen assembly, (2) wiping screens, and (3) wiping master frames. Kvale arranged for Kalskett to perform only those positions, and she rotated between them for a month to six weeks. At the end of that six week period, Kalskett went back to wrapping and screening, but by July these positions proved too much for her back. She returned to her doctor and he recommended that she take a two week leave of absence. When Kalskett returned from her leave of absence, she was assigned to the temporary light duty position of wiping down doors for a day. When she told her crew leader Bill Humphrey that wiping doors required too much leaning forward, she was allowed to place stickers on boxes as they came off the production line. Kalskett continued putting stickers on boxes as they came off the line for a period of two or three weeks, after which her back began to hurt. Kalskett visited her doctor who took an MRI of her back, and recommended that she take some time off. Thereafter, Kalskett returned to work with a release from her doctor outlining her new physical restrictions, which she presented to her crew leader Kvale. Kvale interacted with Kalskett to determine what positions she thought she could perform, and ultimately it was determined by both of them that Kalskett could work assembling screens, wiping screen, wiping frames, and caulking master frames. Kalskett worked assembling screens and caulking through the end of 1996. During this period, Larson accommodated Kalskett's pain management program by allowing her to come to work late so she could swim in the morning, and by allowing her to intermittently take time off during working hours to visit her doctors and attend physical therapy.
In early 1997, Kalskett was again briefly returned to regular duty by her doctor. Almost immediately upon her return, however, Kalskett re-aggravated her back and consequently had new and additional restrictions placed upon her by her doctor. To accommodate those new restrictions, Larson allowed Kalskett to work solely at the screen assembly station and, further, changed that station from a one-person task to a two-person task, so that Kalskett would be required to perform only those functions within her restrictions. In early February of 1997, Kalskett was moved from helping only in screen assembly to performing several other individual stations on the production line. To determine which stations Kalskett could perform, Kalskett and her supervisor, Carol Bergo, worked to develop a customized rotation that Kalskett believed that she could perform. Kalskett proceeded to work in that customized rotation until May or June of 1997, at which time, she learned through an internal Larson job posting that the Team Leader position for Line 3 — a training line — was vacant. In light of this job posting, Kalskett submitted a resume, interviewed with Carol Bergo, and was awarded the position.
In the early Fall of 1997, however, Kalskett's training line shut down due to a downturn in production demand, and Kalskett went back to working on Line 2 as a production line worker. When Kalskett went back to working on Line 2, she was performing at a limited number of stations, including wrapping, screening, and line feeding. Performing these duties, however, caused Kalskett's back to hurt to the point that she had to return to her doctor after only a few weeks of production work. In the Fall of 1997, Kalskett's doctor restricted her to working only a two hour rotation. Larson accommodated Kalskett by permitting her to work on Line 2 performing in only the wrapping, screening, boxing, and line feeding stations. Soon thereafter, however, Kalskett began experiencing back pain, and returned to her doctor, who, on March 31, 1998, gave Kalskett the following new restrictions: A maximum lifting restriction of twenty (20) pounds, and a ten (10) degree bending limitation. Upon her return, Kalskett communicated these new restrictions to her supervisor Carol Bergo, and it was decided that Kalskett would be taken off the wrapping and screening stations in order to accommodate the new restrictions. Subsequently, Bergo arranged for Kalskett's duties to be reduced to the following three stations: (1) boxing, (2) line feeding, and (3) caulking, occasionally only. Despite these arrangements, Kalskett was still experiencing pain, which precipitated another visit to her doctor on April 6, 1998. At that visit, Kalskett's doctor created a more limiting set of restrictions for her, which consisted of the following: a twenty (20) pound lifting restriction, a ten (10) degree, three times per day bending restriction, a restriction that she not stand more than 50% of the workday, sit more than 50% of the workday, or push or pull more than twenty (20) pounds for over 50% of the workday. On April 7, 1998, Kalskett returned to Larson and presented this most recent set of restrictions to Carol Bergo, who in turn accommodated those restrictions by providing her with a light duty position at Larson's other facility in Lake Mills, Iowa, known as Classic View, from April 7, 1998 to April 9, 1998.
At Classic View, Kalskett taped plastic pieces to boxes, placed hinges dropped by a forklift back into a box, and assembled patio bags, which consisted of the warranties, screws, and other incidental parts that came with Larson's doors. On April 9, 1998, the manager of all of Larson's Lake Mills operations, Dan Beinhorn, met with Kalskett and told her that Larson had no more work that could accommodate her restrictions. During this meeting, Kalskett contends that Beinhorn promised her that he would return her to the position of team leader of the training line if that position ever became available. At the time Beinhorn allegedly made this statement to Kalskett, her non-permanent restrictions were the same as they had been on April 7, 1998. So that possible accommodations could be explored further, Kalskett and Beinhorn agreed that she would revisit her doctor in order to determine her physical condition and...
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