Leisen v. City of Shelbyville

• Decision Date: 31 August 1998
• Docket Number: No. 97-2575,97-2575
• Citation: 153 F.3d 805
• Parties: 8 A.D. Cases 892, 13 NDLR P 132 Lori L. LEISEN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF SHELBYVILLE, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 805

153 F.3d 805

8 A.D. Cases 892, 13 NDLR P 132

Lori L. LEISEN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF SHELBYVILLE, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 97-2575.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

Argued Dec. 3, 1997.

Decided Aug. 31, 1998.

W. Russell Sipes (argued), Laudig, George, Rutherford & Sipes, Indianapolis, IN, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

James S. Stephenson, Ronald J. Semler (argued), Stephenson, Daly, Morow & Kurnik, Indianapolis, IN, for Defendant-Appellee.

Before WOOD, Jr., RIPPLE, and DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judges.

DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge.

Lori Leisen wanted to be a paramedic and a firefighter. For a time it looked as if she was on the way to achieving her dream, when she joined the Decatur Township Volunteer Fire Department as one of its first female members. Later, she moved to the defendant City of Shelbyville's Fire Department, where she was also a pioneer as a woman firefighter. But she encountered troubles at Shelbyville that eventually proved insurmountable when she failed to gain state certification as a paramedic, which her contract required her to do within three years from her date of hire. After the Department fired her, she brought this lawsuit, raising claims of breach of contract, sex discrimination in violation of Title VII, and discrimination based on disability in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq. The court below granted the City summary judgment on all of Leisen's claims, and she has limited her appeal to the ADA claim. We have no doubt that she had a difficult time with the fire department, and, taking the facts as she has alleged them, we certainly do not condone everything that happened. Nonetheless, we agree with the district court that Leisen failed to show that she was a qualified person with a disability and that her alleged disability substantially limited a major life activity, and we therefore affirm.

I

Leisen began her stint at the Shelbyville Fire Department in September 1992. Because the City had recently merged its ambulance service with its fire department, it required all new firefighters either to be certified paramedics or to achieve that status within three years of their date of hire. New firefighters were on probationary status until certification. Leisen had obtained certification as an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) in 1988, but she was not a licensed paramedic when she was hired. Before she joined the Shelbyville Department, she had tried once to obtain paramedic certification through a course offered at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, but for some undisclosed reason did not complete the course. She had reenrolled in a course at Methodist at the time she was hired by the Shelbyville Fire Department but was experiencing difficulties with it. After discussing the matter with her new superiors in Shelbyville, Leisen decided to drop out of that course and to enroll in a different paramedic certification program at St. Francis Hospital, also in Indianapolis. She was dismissed from that course in February 1994 for failing grades. Trying yet again, she enrolled in a program at Columbus Regional Hospital. There her performance improved, but she failed the final examination in Advanced Cardiac Life Support. Her dismissal from the Columbus program followed shortly thereafter, in May 1995.

Leisen attributed her poor record to the emotional disabilities from which she suffered. At the time she was hired, she was a single mother of two children aged about 14 and 11. Like countless single parents, she found it difficult to balance home and work life. Cf. Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 § 2, 29 U.S.C. § 2601; Nancy E. Dowd, Stigmatizing Single Parents, 18 Harv. Women's L.J. 19 (1995); Sarah N. Gatson, Labor Policy and the Social Meaning of Parenthood, 22 Law & Soc. Inquiry 277, 306 (1997); Nancy E. Dowd, Work & Family: Restructuring the Workplace, 32 Ariz. L.Rev. 431 (1990). She was also struggling with sexual harassment and discrimination at work. She thought, for example, that there was some discrimination in the way the department handled the physical agility test she needed to pass in order to be hired. Ultimately the Fire Chief concluded that she had passed the test, but some of the methods she used in the test were different from those normally used by male applicants, and were questioned by her coworkers and superiors despite not having been forbidden. She was never allowed on an engine run, even though male probationary firefighters were given that opportunity. The wives of some firefighters were hostile to her, at least partially because they did not like the fact that she was sleeping in the same quarters as their husbands. (The department eventually installed partitions to address this concern.) Her male colleagues also harassed her about such intimate details as her use of the restroom facilities and her disposal of sanitary items. She gives a number of other examples in her brief, but these give the flavor of her account.

On top of the negative work atmosphere, Leisen faced stress from a variety of additional sources: her grandfather died in March 1993, her ex-husband filed a petition (which was ultimately successful) to gain custody of their children in September 1993, and she lost her second job in early 1995, which put a strain on her financial situation. She sought and received counseling for her stress-related depression beginning in February 1994, through the City's Employee Assistance Program.

Leisen realized after her dismissal from the Columbus program that she could not meet the three-year deadline for obtaining the paramedic certification required by her contract, because paramedic programs normally take 18 months to complete. She met with Fire Chief Kenneth Scott and Director of Emergency Medical Services Stephen Schoentrup to ask them to extend the probationary period of her contract so that she could enroll in yet another paramedic course. At that meeting, Leisen explained to them how much stress she was under, though it is unclear whether she told them that she had been formally diagnosed as suffering from clinical depression (or whether she had been by that point). Scott and Schoentrup refused her request and told her they were going to recommend to the Mayor that her employment be terminated. The whole group met with the Mayor a few days later, at which time Leisen had the opportunity to explain her situation, and her "emotional difficulties," to him. After a second meeting, she was told to resign within 30 days or her case would be put before the Board of Public Works and Safety for a dismissal hearing.

Leisen then offered to resign on two conditions: that she be allowed to purchase her fire gear, and that she be given a positive recommendation. Chief Scott was unwilling to part with her on those terms, and so the promised dismissal hearing took place before the Board on August 8, 1995. Relying on copies of notes from her counseling sessions, she told the Board that she was suffering from an emotional disability and asked that it accommodate her by extending the probationary period of her contract so that she could try again to obtain paramedic certification. The Board decided against that course of action, fearing liability if she found herself in a position where she needed to give medical assistance to citizens. It voted to enforce her contract as written and to terminate her effective immediately. After her dismissal, Leisen took and passed a course to become a pharmacy technician, and her attorney states in his brief that she has now passed a paramedic certification course in Ohio.

II

In order to prove that Shelbyville violated the ADA by terminating her, Leisen must show (1) that she was disabled as...