Seventh Circuit: Employer had Knowledge of Employee's Narcolepsy at time of Termination

In a decision issued last week, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals once again drove home the point that an employer who ignores or takes action in spite of an employee’s apparent disability does so at its own peril. The case, Spurling v. C&M Fine Pack, Inc., No. 13-1708 (Jan. 13, 2014), involved an employee who – unbeknownst to her or the employer – suffered from narcolepsy.

After an incident of falling asleep on the job, the employer held a disciplinary meeting at which the employee reported that her sleepiness was the result of a medication. After a second incident occurred, the employee was placed on suspension; she then reported to her manager for the first time that her conduct might be related to a medical condition. The manager, therefore, gave the employee paperwork to have completed by her physician during her suspension, but at the same time, he sent an e-mail to his superior recommending her termination.

The employee returned the physician’s paperwork, which confirmed that her excessive drowsiness was an ADA-qualifying disability and that additional medical tests were in progress. The employer, however, determined that the paperwork was insufficient – in the words of the manager, the employer “[didn’t] believe the doctor is in a position to make that determination. It is his opinion.” The employer, therefore, notified the employee of her termination. The employee was diagnosed with narcolepsy the following month, and she immediately filed suit against the employer alleging discrimination under the ADA. The district court granted summary judgment to the employer, finding that the termination effectively took place when the manager e-mailed his recommendation to his superior, which was before the employer had any definite knowledge of the employee’s condition.

The employee appealed to the 7th Circuit, where a three-judge panel reversed the district court and remanded the case for trial. The panel rejected the lower court’s conclusion that the termination had occurred at the time of the manager’s e-mail, finding based upon prior cases that a termination does not occur until the employee receives “unequivocal” confirmation of the decision (i.e., in this case, after the report was received). Having made that determination, the case became an easy one – the employer simply “chose to turn a blind eye” to the employee’s condition when it terminated her, and therefore failed to accommodate her in violation of the ADA. Specifically, the panel found, the employer had “disregarded the medical evaluation altogether” by terminating the employee in spite of the evidence and without any further inquiry. “Once [the employer] received notice of [her] disability …, it was incumbent upon them to [engage] in an interactive process,” the panel concluded, and the employer’s actions, in this case, were “hardly engaging with [the employee] to determine if a reasonable accommodation could be made.”

The lessons of this case are obvious – an employer creates significant risk by ignoring an employee’s report of a disability (and particularly by treating a physician’s statement as only “his opinion”), and any action taken without engaging in an interactive dialogue will in all likelihood result in liability. This employer’s mistake was ignoring the physician’s report, and its attempt to save itself by arguing that the termination actually had occurred before it received that report was a failed last-ditch effort. Had the employer simply engaged in the appropriate process, it would not be facing a lawsuit right now.