Mears v. Gulfstream Aerospace Corp.

Decision Date05 September 1995
Docket NumberCiv. A. No. 494-217.
PartiesSheila F. MEARS and Luther B. Mears, Jr., Plaintiffs, v. GULFSTREAM AEROSPACE CORP., Defendant.
CourtU.S. District Court — Southern District of Georgia

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Fred Stephen Clark, Savannah, GA, for plaintiffs.

Stanford A. Hines, Sage Brown & Associates, Savannah, GA, for defendant.

ORDER

EDENFIELD, Chief Judge.

Plaintiffs Luther B. and Sheila F. Mears brought suit against Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation for discrimination against Sheila on the basis of a disability and for Luther's resulting loss of consortium. The Plaintiffs also sought recovery under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983. Luther Mears' loss of consortium claim was dismissed, and Plaintiff withdrew her Section 1983 claim at the status conference. Sheila Mears' discrimination claim is the sole remaining cause of action. Defendant moves for summary judgment, arguing that, under the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12101, et seq. (1991), there is no reasonable accommodation it can give Plaintiff which would afford her the opportunity to perform the essential functions of her job. The Court GRANTS Defendant's motion for summary judgment.

I. Background

Sheila Mears began working in Gulfstream's accounts receivable department in 1983. Her employment at Gulfstream was uneventful until 1987 or 1988 when a male employee made a sexually harassing remark to her. S. Mears Dep. at 38-43. Sheila was upset by this event, and reported it to upper management. The male employee was required to apologize for the incident and was formally reprimanded. Id. Other male employees, including her supervisor, made other comments which she construed as sexually offensive. S. Mears Dep. at 109. Another incident involved some female employees in her department placing an article on her desk about breast implants, apparently to ridicule her about "being very small chested." Id. at 108-16. Plaintiff never filed a grievance about any of these incidents. Id. at 117.

Another incident unrelated to any sexual harassment occurred in October of 1992. Plaintiff, after a night in which she got little sleep and while she was suffering from a migraine headache, dropped some files on her desk. S. Mears Dep. at 25-30. Her supervisor, Harold Smith, called her into his office and accused her of taking drugs. Id. Smith demanded that Sheila take a drug test and, along with one of her fellow employees, escorted her to the nurse's station for the drug test. Id. at 27. Plaintiff was humiliated by this experience. Id. at 136. Her drug test came back positive for a minor substance, and Sheila admitted to taking a "nerve" pill she had gotten from her grandmother. Id. at 49.

Company policy required anyone testing positive for any drug to see a doctor affiliated with the company. The doctor told her she suffered from a lack of self confidence. Id. at 48.

When Plaintiff asked Smith for an explanation for the incident, he began pounding his fist on his desk and was, in Plaintiff's opinion, extremely upset with her. Id. at 43-44. From that moment on, Sheila began to feel frozen out by the others in her department and intimidated by her supervisor. Id. at 45. She tried to avoid communicating with her supervisor when at all possible. Id. at 44-45. Her supervisor would "belittle" her and, in Sheila's opinion, try to make her feel inadequate. Id. at 46, 50. Plaintiff was apparently not the only person subjected to Smith's conduct. S. Mears Dep. at 46.

Plaintiff saw her supervisor's conduct as a problem and sought to correct it by reporting it to upper management. Id. at 50-52. A senior manager directed her to see someone in personnel who turned out to be "very supportive and very understanding." Id. at 55. In the meantime, Sheila was under much stress as a result of the tensions that had developed within her department. She became paranoid that people in her supervisor's office were talking about her. Id. at 56-57.

Sheila met with her personnel contact and another member of senior management about the situation. She often cried during this period and, at one point, was given a week off with pay in order to curb the tension. Id. at 61. When Sheila returned from this absence, management proposed moving her to another department. Id. at 62. Believing that she had done nothing wrong, Plaintiff resisted the transfer. Id. at 62. She finally acquiesced and was transferred to the pricing department. Although the job classification was lower than the one from which she transferred, Gulfstream maintained her salary at her pre-transfer level.

Her new department exploited Sheila's accounts receivable expertise by assigning her the task of generating an accounts receivable report. Id. at 67-68. There apparently was no one else in accounts receivable capable of producing the report. Id. This, coupled with the demands of learning her new job, caused even more stress for her. Also, employees in her old accounts receivable department would periodically call Sheila to ask her questions about tasks for which she formerly had responsibility. Id. at 68-69. These calls brought back unpleasant memories of Plaintiff's time in accounts receivable, though she also stated that she "loved" her old job and "wanted to be there so bad." Id.

In addition to this contact with her old department, pricing department employees asked her to go back to accounts receivable to pull invoices. Id. at 71-72. While no one in her former department would say or do anything unpleasant, the one or two times she went back to her old department, Sheila came back "crying and hysterical" both times. Id. at 71-72, 75. She also had to call her old department once every month to do a monthly report. Id. She did not interact with her former supervisor after transferring departments. Id. at 73.

Throughout this chain of events, Plaintiff did not suffer from any migraine headaches or any other documented illness. Id. at 59. She never told anyone at the company that she was suffering from any mental disorder. Id. at 101.

Sheila worked in the pricing department for five or six months, after which time she had to take two weeks off because of "stress" and "depression." Id. at 76. She returned to work after the two week absence and worked for two more weeks at which time the stress became too great and she left again in May of 1993. Id. Instead of resigning or being discharged, Plaintiff was given short term disability benefits which lasted 26 weeks. Hilderbrand Aff. ¶¶ 4-5. At the end of this period, Plaintiff was terminated in accordance with Gulfstream's policy, which only allows 26 weeks of paid leave. Id. at ¶ 6. After her termination, she applied for and received long term benefits retroactive to her date of termination. Id.

After leaving her day to day duties at Gulfstream, Mears was diagnosed as suffering from Dythmia and agoraphobia. Affs. of Drs. Stoneking and Heneisen. Her "exposure to people in the accounts receivable department ... exacerbated her condition and caused her emotional disability." Id. (emphasis added).

Between 1987 and 1993 Sheila accumulated a total of 1,978 hours of medical leaves of absence. Hilderbrand Aff. ¶ 9. The majority of this time was for physical problems she had related to the birth of her children. Despite these recurrent and often lengthy absences, Gulfstream did not terminate Mears.

II. Summary Judgment Standard

The "purpose of summary judgment is to `pierce the pleadings and to assess the proof in order to see whether there is a genuine need for trial.'" Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 1356, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986) (quoting Fed.R.Civ.P. 56 advisory committee's note). "A party seeking summary judgment always bears the initial responsibility of informing the district court of the basis for its motion, and identifying those portions of the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, if any, which it believes demonstrate the absence of a genuine issue of material fact." Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 2553, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986)); see Goree v. Winnebago Indus., Inc., 958 F.2d 1537, 1539 (11th Cir.1992).

After the movant successfully discharges this initial burden, the burden shifts to the nonmovant to establish, by going beyond the pleadings, that there is a genuine issue as to facts material to the nonmovant's case. Thompson v. Metropolitan Multi-List, Inc., 934 F.2d 1566, 1583 n. 16 (11th Cir.1991); see Avirgan v. Hull, 932 F.2d 1572, 1577 (11th Cir.1991), cert. denied, 504 U.S. 1048, 112 S.Ct. 913, 116 L.Ed.2d 813 (1992); Chanel, Inc. v. Italian Activewear of Fla., Inc., 931 F.2d 1472, 1477 (11th Cir. 1991). The nonmovant "must present affirmative evidence in order to defeat a properly supported motion for summary judgment." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 257, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2514, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). "Where the record taken as a whole could not lead a rational trier of fact to find for the nonmoving party, then there is no genuine issue for trial." Matsushita Elec. Indus. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 1356, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986); see Liberty Lobby, 477 U.S. at 252, 106 S.Ct. at 2512.

In assessing whether the movant is entitled to summary judgment in its favor, the district court must review the evidence and all reasonable factual inferences arising from it in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Welch v. Celotex Corp., 951 F.2d 1235, 1237 (11th Cir.1992); Ryder Int'l Corp. v. First Am. Nat'l Bank, 943 F.2d 1521, 1523 (11th Cir.1991). The Court must avoid weighing conflicting evidence or making credibility determinations. Liberty Lobby, 477 U.S. at 255, 106 S.Ct. at 2513-14. The Court's analysis ends "where there is no genuine issue of material fact and where the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Great Lakes Dredge & Dock...

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