Overweight Employee Is Unable to Establish Her Weight, Rather Than A Knee Injury, Was the Reason For Her Termination

Harrison v. Soave Enterprises - United States District Court, Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division

Facts:  Jacqueline Harrison (“Harrison”) began working for or with Soave Enterprises and Parts Galore in December 2005.  Parts Galore operates large vehicle yards and allows customers a self-service opportunity to salvage parts from vehicles in the yard.  As a Manager at one of the Parts Galore locations, Harrison’s duties included spot checking cars each day to ensure they were ready to be placed in the yard for customer use.  This required Harrison to look under the hood of each vehicle as well as under the vehicle itself.  To do so, Harrison was required to kneel down and look under the car.  At the time of her employment, Harrison weighed 300 pounds and suffered from a torn anterior cruciate ligament (“ACL”).  Harrison claimed that that her torn ACL qualified as a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) and limited her mobility, namely her ability to kneel.

During the course of her employment, Harrison claimed she could not kneel to look under vehicles, and requested Parts Galore purchase a mirror to enable her to inspect the underside of the vehicles.  The mirror was subsequently purchased for her.  Other than her inability to kneel or walk long distances, Harrison did not have any other physical limitations that precluded her from performing her duties.  At the time of her termination, she did not have any doctor imposed medical or physical restrictions and was not being treated for her ACL injury.  Other than her request for the mirror, Harrison had made no other requests for accommodation for her claimed disability and believed that no other accommodations were needed.

Harrison subsequently brought suit against Soave Enterprises and Parts Galore on the grounds that they violated the ADA and Michigan’s Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act (“ELCRA”) on the grounds she was discriminated against because of her claimed disability (as she was not accommodated was terminated due to her injury) and weight (being the alleged reason for her termination).  Both Soave Enterprises and Parts Galore moved for summary judgment on Harrison’s claims.

Holding:  After determining that Soave Enterprises and Parts Galore served as Harrison’s employer, the Court turned its attention to the ADA and ELCRA portions of Harrison’s claim.

ADA

As readers will likely recall, for a claimant to prove a prima facie case of disability discrimination, it must be shown:  1) she is disabled, 2) was otherwise qualified for the position, with or without a reasonable accommodation, 3) suffered an adverse employment decision, 4) the employer knew or had reason to know of the disability, and 5) the position remained open while the employer sought other applicants.  To establish a ‘disability’, it requires 1) “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities”, 2) “a record of such an impairment”, or 3) “being regarded as having such an impairment.”  Major life activities include, but are not limited to “caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, seeing, hearing, eating, sleeping, walking, standing, lifting, bending, speaking, breathing, learning, reading, concentrating, thinking, communicating, and working.”

In this case, the only physical limitation that Harrison claimed was the inability to kneel.  However, the Court noted that prior Sixth Circuit precedent established that a knee injury did not qualify as substantially limiting any major life activity and therefore was insufficient for Harrison to claim she was disabled under the ADA.

In the alternative, Harrison claimed that Soave Enterprises and Parts Galore regarded her as disabled and refused to accommodate her.  Although she was provided a mirror, that alone did not establish, per se, that she was regarded as disabled.  As for the refusal to accommodate, the Court noted that it had already established that Harrison was not disabled, thus extinguishing any refusal to accommodate claim.

Weight Discrimination

For a claimant to establish a prima facie case of weight discrimination under the ELCRA, it must be shown:  1) she belongs to a protected class, 2) she suffered an adverse employment action, 3) she was qualified for the position, and 4) her termination gave rise to an inference of unlawful discrimination. Once a prima facie case is established, the burden shifts for the employer to establish a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the adverse employment action.  Of the employer can meet this burden, the claimant must then show the proffered reason was not the true reason but rather a mere pretext for discrimination.

The Court held that Harrison was able to establish the four requisite factors and thus turned to whether Soave Enterprises and Parts Galore could meet their burden.  In this case, Harrison claimed the only reason given for her termination was her ACL injury that prevented her from performing all of her duties.  Notably, Harrison conceded that she was never treated differently by any other supervisor, never heard her supervisor refer to her weight at any time, and had no other evidence that she was terminated because of her weight.  As a result, Soave Enterprises and Parts Galore were found to have provided a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for Harrison’s termination - an inability to perform all of her job duties because of a knee injury.  However, Harrison was unable to present sufficient evidence to show that Soave Enterprises and Parts Galore‘s reason for her termination was merely a pretext for discrimination, thus defeating the viability of this portion of her claim.

Judgment:  The District Court granted summary judgment in favor of two employers on the grounds that a terminated employee could not establish she was discriminated against because her knee injury did not make her “disabled” under the Americans with Disabilities Act and she was also unable to show that she was terminated because of her weight, thus defeating her weight discrimination claim under Michigan’s Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act. 

The Takeaway:  There are a couple things for readers to keep in mind here.  First, Soave Enterprises and Parts Galore had the caselaw on their side, in so much that a prior Sixth Circuit case had established that a knee injury did not qualify as a disability under the ADA.  As that was the reason given for Harrison’s termination, had it been found that a knee injury did qualify as a disability under the ADA, this case would have gone a while other direction.  Further, had Harrison been able to establish she was treated differently because of her weight, heard a supervisor refer to her weight at any point, or been able to provide some evidence that she was terminated because of her weight (rather than her knee injury), I think the Court would have likely found that Harrison met her burden and therefore summary judgment would not have been granted for Soave Enterprises and Parts Galore.  Bear in mind what this case does not say:  That an employee cannot be discriminated against because of their weight.  Rather, as this case established, simply being overweight but unable to produce evidence to establish that was the reason for an adverse employment action will likely doom a claimant’s weight discclaim under the ELCRA.

Majority Opinion Judge:  Judge Parker

Date:  January 23, 2019

Opinion:  http://hr.cch.com/ELD/HarrisonSoave012319.pdf