Summers v. Altarum Inst., Corp.

• Decision Date: 23 January 2014
• Docket Number: No. 13–1645.,13–1645.
• Citation: 740 F.3d 325
• Parties: Carl R. SUMMERS, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. ALTARUM INSTITUTE, CORPORATION, Defendant–Appellee. AARP; National Employment Lawyers Association, Amici Supporting Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

740 F.3d 325

Carl R. SUMMERS, Plaintiff–Appellant,

v.ALTARUM INSTITUTE, CORPORATION, Defendant–Appellee.

AARP; National Employment Lawyers Association, Amici Supporting Appellant.

No. 13–1645.

United States Court of Appeals,Fourth Circuit.

Argued: Dec. 10, 2013.

Decided: Jan. 23, 2014.

ARGUED:David Scher, The Employment Law Group, PC, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Paul William Coughenour, Clark Hill PLC, Detroit, Michigan, for Appellee. ON BRIEF:R. Scott Oswald, The Employment Law Group, PC, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Carly E. Osadetz, Clark Hill PLC, Detroit, Michigan, for Appellee. Rebecca Hamburg Cappy, National Employment Lawyers Association, San Francisco, California; Daniel B. Kohrman, AARP Foundation Litigation, Washington, D.C.; Melvin Radowitz, AARP, Washington, D.C., for Amici Supporting Appellant.

Before MOTZ, AGEE, and DIAZ, Circuit Judges.

Reversed and remanded by published opinion. Judge MOTZ wrote the opinion, in which Judge AGEE and Judge DIAZ joined.

DIANA GRIBBON MOTZ, Circuit Judge:

Pursuant to recent amendments to the Americans With Disabilities Act, a sufficiently severe temporary impairment may constitute a disability. Because the district court held to the contrary, we reverse and remand.

I.

A.

Carl Summers appeals the dismissal of his complaint for failure to state a claim on which relief can be granted. Accordingly, we recount the facts as alleged by Summers. Minor v. Bostwick Labs., Inc., 669 F.3d 428, 430 n. 1 (4th Cir.2012).

In July 2011, Summers began work as a senior analyst for the Altarum Institute, a government contractor with an office in Alexandria, Virginia. Summers's job required him to travel to the Maryland offices of Altarum's client, the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury (“DCoE”). At DCoE, Summers conducted statistical research, wrote reports, and made presentations. Altarum policy authorized employees to work remotely if the client approved. The client, here DCoE, preferred contractors to work on-site during business hours, but permitted them to work remotely from home when “putting in extra time on [a] project.”

On October 17, 2011, Summers fell and injured himself while exiting a commuter train on his way to DCoE. With a heavy bag slung over his shoulder, he lost his footing and struck both knees against the train platform. Paramedics took Summers to the hospital, where doctors determined that he had sustained serious injuries to both legs. Summers fractured his left leg and tore the meniscus tendon in his left knee. He also fractured his right ankle and ruptured the quadriceps-patellar tendon in his right leg. Repairing the left-leg fracture required surgery to fit a metal plate, screws, and bone into his tibia. Treating Summers's ruptured right quadriceps required another surgery to drill a hole in the patella and refasten his tendons to the knee.

Doctors forbade Summers from putting any weight on his left leg for six weeks and estimated that he would not be able to walk normally for seven months at the earliest. Without surgery, bed rest, pain medication, and physical therapy, Summers alleges that he would “likely” not have been able to walk for more than a year after the accident.

While hospitalized, Summers contacted an Altarum human-resources representative about obtaining short-term disability benefits and working from home as he recovered. The Altarum representative agreed to discuss “accommodations that would allow Summers to return to work,” but suggested that Summers “take short-term disability and focus on getting well again.” Summers sent emails to his supervisors at Altarum and DCoE seeking advice about how to return to work; he suggested “a plan in which he would take short-term disability for a few weeks, then start working remotely part-time, and then increase his hours gradually until he was full-time again.”

Altarum's insurance provider granted Summers short-term disability benefits. But Altarum never followed up on Summers's request to discuss how he might successfully return to work. The company did not suggest any alternative reasonable accommodation or engage in any interactive process with Summers. Nor did Altarum tell Summers that there was “any problem with his plan for a graduated return to work.” Instead, on November 30, Altarum simply informed Summers “that Altarum was terminating [him] effective December 1, 2011, in order to place another analyst in his role at DCoE.”

B.

In September 2012, Summers filed a complaint in the Eastern District of Virginia alleging two claims under the Americans With Disability Act (“ADA” or “Act”). First, Summers asserted that Altarum discriminated against him by wrongfully discharging him on account of his disability. Second, Summers asserted that Altarum failed to accommodate his disability. After Summers amended the complaint in October 2012, the district court granted Altarum's Rule 12(b)(6) motion and dismissed both claims without prejudice.

Rather than filing a second amended complaint, Summers filed a new lawsuit in December 2012 presenting essentially the same two claims. A few months later, the district court again granted Altarum's motion to dismiss both claims, this time with prejudice. First, the court dismissed the wrongful-discharge claim on the ground that Summers had failed to allege that he was disabled. The court reasoned that a “temporary condition, even up to a year, does not fall within the purview of the [A]ct” and so “the defendant's not disabled.” The court further suggested that Summers was not disabled because he could have worked with the assistance of a wheelchair. Second, the court dismissed Summers's failure-to-accommodate claim on the ground that Summers failed to allege that he had requested a reasonable accommodation. The court reasoned that an employee bears the burden of requesting a reasonable accommodation, and that Summers's proposal to work temporarily from home was unreasonable “because it sought to eliminate a significant function of the job.”

On appeal, Summers challenges only the district court's dismissal of his wrongful-discharge claim. He does not contest the court's dismissal of his failure-to-accommodate claim, and so we do not consider it.

II.

To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must state “a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007). We review de novo an appeal from a Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal, accepting the complaint as true and drawing reasonable inferences in the plaintiff's favor. Nemet Chevrolet, Ltd. v. Consumeraffairs.com, Inc., 591 F.3d 250, 253 (4th Cir.2009).

A.

The ADA makes it unlawful for covered employers to “discriminate against a qualified individual on the basis of disability.” 42 U.S.C. § 12112(a) (2012). The Act prohibits covered employers from discharging qualified employees because they are disabled. Id. To establish a wrongful-discharge claim, a plaintiff must show, among other things, that he suffered from a “disability.” Young v. United Parcel Serv., 707 F.3d 437, 443 (4th Cir.2013).

Under the ADA, a “disability” may take any of the following forms: (1) “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities” (the “actual-disability” prong); (2) “a record of such an impairment” (the “record-of” prong); or (3) “being regarded as having such an impairment” (the “regarded-as” prong). 42 U.S.C. § 12102(1). Summers alleges that he was disabled under the ADA's actual-disability prong. Specifically, he asserts that his impairment “substantially limit[ed]” his ability to walk—which the ADA recognizes as one of the “major life activities” whose substantial limitation qualifies as a disability. Id. § 12102(2)(A). Accordingly, if Summers's impairment substantially limited his ability to walk, he suffered a “disability” for purposes of the ADA.

B.

In September 2008, Congress broadened the definition of “disability” by enacting the ADA Amendments Act of 2008, Pub.L. No. 110–325, 122 Stat. 3553 (“ADAAA” or “amended Act”). In response to a series of Supreme Court decisions that Congress believed improperly restricted the scope of the ADA, it passed legislation with the stated purpose of “reinstating a broad scope of protection to be available under the ADA.” Id. § 2(b)(1). Particularly relevant to this case, Congress sought to override Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky, Inc. v. Williams, 534 U.S. 184, 199, 122 S.Ct. 681, 151 L.Ed.2d 615 (2002), in which the Supreme Court had adopted a strict construction of the term “disability” and suggested that a temporary impairment could not qualify as a disability under the Act. Congress believed that Toyota set an “inappropriately high level of limitation necessary to obtain coverage under the ADA.” Pub.L. No. 110–325, § 2(b)(5).

Abrogating Toyota, the amended Act provides that the definition of disability “shall be construed in favor of broad coverage of individuals under this chapter, to the maximum extent permitted by [its] terms.” 42 U.S.C. § 12102(4)(A). Further, Congress instructed that the term “substantially limits” be interpreted consistently with the liberalized purposes of the ADAAA. Id. § 12102(4)(B).¹ And Congress directed the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) to revise its regulations defining the term “substantially limits” to render them consistent with the broadened scope of the statute. Pub.L. No. 110–325, § 2(b)(6).

After notice and comment, the EEOC promulgated regulations clarifying that “[t]he term ‘substantially limits' shall be construed broadly in favor of expansive coverage” and that the term is “not meant to be a demanding standard.” 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(j)(1)(i) (2013). The EEOC regulations also expressly provide that “effects of an impairment lasting or expected to last fewer than six months can be substantially limiting” for purposes of proving an actual...