Opinion
4:22cv322-WS/MAF
2023-09-29
Rasheeda FRYSON, Plaintiff, v. FLORIDA AGENCY FOR HEALTH CARE ADMINISTRATION, Defendant.
Marie A. Mattox, Erika Esan Goodman, Mattox Law Firm, Tallahassee, FL, for Plaintiff. Robert Jacob Sniffen, Diana K. Shumans, Kristen Candice Diot, Sniffen & Spellman PA, Tallahassee, FL, for Defendant.
Marie A. Mattox, Erika Esan Goodman, Mattox Law Firm, Tallahassee, FL, for Plaintiff. Robert Jacob Sniffen, Diana K. Shumans, Kristen Candice Diot, Sniffen & Spellman PA, Tallahassee, FL, for Defendant.
ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANT'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT
WILLIAM STAFFORD, SENIOR UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Rasheeda Fryson sues her former employer, the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration ("AHCA" or the "Agency"), for employment discrimination. She claims she was subjected to disability-based discrimination when she was not permitted to continue teleworking from home and was, as a result, forced to resign. She seeks relief under Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA") (Count I) and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Count II).
Before the court at this time are AHCA's motion for summary judgment (ECF No. 23), Fryson's response (ECF No. 25) in opposition thereto, and AHCA's reply (ECF No. 27) to Fryson's response.
I.
In support of its motion for summary judgment, AHCA has submitted evidence that reveals the following:
Fryson began working for AHCA as a Secretary in 2003. In 2007, she was promoted to the position of Human Services Program Records Analyst. She was promoted again in 2018 and 2020, to the positions of Human Services Program Analyst and Senior Human Services Program Specialist respectively.
Beginning in March 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, AHCA permitted all career service employees to telework from home. As required for all work-from-home employees, Fryson signed a COVID-19 Telework Worker Agreement (the "Agreement"), which provided that (1) "This agreement will be valid until canceled by either party;" (2) "Management has the right to remove the employee from the program if participation fails to benefit organizational needs;" and (3) "If participation in the program is terminated the employee will be required to report back to the office or other approved work site." ECF No. 22-2 at 8. Fryson worked from home pursuant to this Agreement during the pandemic.
On March 31, 2021, AHCA issued an "all-call" for career service employees to return to in-office work on May 17, 2021. The Agency thereafter accepted requests to continue teleworking from employees who believed they had a disability as defined by the ADA. On April 28, 2021, Fryson submitted a request to continue to telework as an accommodation under the ADA.
Fryson has a history of nasal polyps, allergic rhinitis, and asthma. On February 25, 2021, Fryson was seen by her immunologist, who reported that Fryson's "asthma symptoms are very concerning." ECF No. 22-5 at 2. Rating her overall asthma control as "poor," the immunologist attributed Fryson's then-current symptoms to her failure to take her medications as prescribed. The immunologist declined Fryson's request for a letter stating that "she cannot return to work because she has asthma," explaining:
I have numerous patients who have asthma and by taking medication and controlling [their] asthma, there [are] no limitations on their ability to work. Simply the presence of asthma does not preclude patients from working even in a pandemic. Patients [whose] asthma is well controlled with medications are not at any higher risk than other, nonasthmatic people. Since there are no immediate plans for her to return to work, we should have time to get her asthma under control before [she] returns to in person job duties.Id. at 3.
At a follow-up appointment with her immunologist on April 7, 2021, Fryson reported that her asthma symptoms had improved. Upon examination, the immunologist noted that:
[Fryson's] improvement over the past 6 weeks has been nothing short of remarkable. Her nasal symptoms have completely resolved with the reduction in size of her nasal polyps. No longer having any congestion or nasal symptoms and her sense of smell and taste have both returned . . . . Pulmonary function testing is within normal limits. Functionally, she has been going to the gym again and she is engaging in cardiovascular exercise 3-4 days a week without any asthma symptoms.ECF No. 22-6 at 2. When her deposition was taken on March 24, 2023, Fryson confirmed, that (1) she experienced moderate to sever asthma symptoms from March 2020 to February 21, 2021 (her first year of working from home), her overall asthma control being poor at that time, ECF No. 22-4 at 37, 56; (2) as of April 7, 2021, six weeks after her follow-up appointment with the immunologist, her asthma was under control, id. at 64; and (3) she agreed with the immunologist's conclusion that her improvement after getting back on her medications was "nothing short of remarkable," id. at 69.
In her request to AHCA for an accommodation, Fryson submitted a note from her primary care physician—not her asthma and immunology specialist physician—dated April 28, 2021, which stated in toto:
Rasheeda Fryson is a patient of mine at Wilson Family Medicine. Due to her underlying health issues, it is medically necessary for the patient to continue to
work from home. If you have any questions, please contact my office.ECF No. 22-2 at 11. Because the information in the doctor's note was not sufficient under the ADA, the Agency asked the doctor for more information. In a fax received by AHCA on May 10, 2021, the doctor stated:
It is medically necessary for Ms. Fryson to telework due to her asthma. It is unrelated to COVID-19, as she does not have contraindication to vaccination and is able to mask. However, she believes that the building is a sick building, because she has been well the entire time she has worked from home, but got sick as soon as she was back in the building at work. I cannot speak to the status of the building, but something in the environment exacerbated her [medical condition] upon return to work.ECF No. 22-2 at 113. Again, the doctor provided no details about Fryson's medical condition.
The Agency had reason to question the doctor's statements that Fryson became ill "as soon as she was back in the building at work" and that "something in the environment exacerbated her [medical condition] upon return to work." In July 2020, while Fryson was working from home, her office was moved from a building located on Executive Center Circle East to the Agency's main headquarters ("Building 3") on Mahan Drive. Beginning in July 2020, Agency employees, including Fryson, no longer worked at the Executive Center Circle East location.
Realizing that, at the time Fryson's primary doctor sent her second note, Fryson was still teleworking from home, the Agency reviewed Fryson's badge swipes to determine that Fryson entered Building 3 on August 18, September 23, October 5, and December 4, 2020, and March 30, 2021, spending, at most, a total of twenty (20) hours in Building 3. Fryson's claim that she became ill "as soon as she was back in the building at work" seemed dubious at best.
When deposed, Fryson suggested that she spent much less than twenty (20) hours in Building 3. ECF No. 22-4 at 73-76.
The Agency also contacted the landlord of Building 3, requesting information about the environmental conditions in the building. The landlord responded:
We have continually monitored the Buildings. We routinely change the air filters and John Jones Air Conditioning handles all service work and has done so for over 10 years. If they had noticed anything they would have contacted us. Since our ownership we have no knowledge of any conditions that would warrant investigation.ECF No. 22-3 at 6.
Based on the results of its investigation regarding the representations made by Fryson's primary care physician, AHCA denied Fryson's April 28th work-from-home request and, instead, informed her that she was required to return to the office for work on June 14, 2021. Fryson did not return to work on June 14 but, instead, used all of her remaining paid leave time from June 11, 2021, until July 7, 2021, before voluntarily resigning on July 8, 2021. Fryson never informed AHCA that she did not intend to return to work before she voluntarily resigned without notice.
II.
In Count I of her amended complaint, Fryson asserts a claim under Title I of the ADA. Citing Board of Trustees of University of Alabama v. Garrett, 531 U.S. 356, 121 S.Ct. 955, 148 L.Ed.2d 866 (2001), AHCA contends that it is entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity as to this claim. In response, Fryson suggests that AHCA ignores the fact that the Garrett Court "did not block private individuals from seeking injunctive relief for violations of Title I of the ADA, pursuant to Ex Parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 [28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714] (1908)." ECF No. 25 at 7. In Ex Parte Young, the Supreme Court recognized an exception to Eleventh Amendment immunity in suits seeking to compel a state officer to comply with federal law. Id. at 159-60, 28 S.Ct. 441. Fryson, however, has not sued a state officer; she has instead sued a state agency that is immune from suits in federal court, whether for those suits are for injunctive or monetary relief. See Pennhurst State School and Hosp. v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 100, 104 S.Ct. 900, 79 L.Ed.2d 67 (1984) (holding that suits against a state agency are barred by the Eleventh Amendment regardless of the nature of relief sought). AHCA's motion for summary judgment as to Count I is due to be granted.
III.
In Count II of her amended complaint, Fryson asserts a claim of "handicap discrimination" under the RA. 29 U.S.C. § 794. Specifically she alleges that AHCA both refused to accommodate her disability and constructively discharged her on the basis of that disability.
There are two separate categories of disability discrimination claims under the RA: (1) failure to accommodate, and (2) disparate treatment. Height v. McDonough, No. 8:19cv2753-MSS/JSS, 2023 WL 5266335, at *3 (M.D. Fla. July 27, 2023).
A.
To prevail on a failure-to-accommodate claim, a plaintiff has the burden of identifying an accommodation and demonstrating that the requested accommodation is reasonable. Frazier-White v. Gee, 818 F.3d 1249, 1256 (11th Cir. 2016). If the plaintiff makes this showing, then the burden shifts to the employer to present evidence that the plaintiff's requested accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the employer. Rutledge v. Vengroff Williams, Inc., No. 8:22cv1782-VMC-SPF, 2023 WL 5607586, at *7 (M.D. Fla. Aug. 30, 2023) (citing Terrell v. USAIR, 132 F.3d 621, 624 (11th Cir. 1998)). To determine an appropriate reasonable accommodation, "it may be necessary . . . to initiate an informal interactive process with the individual with a disability in need of the accommodation." 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(o)(3). If the employee fails to demonstrate that a requested accommodation is reasonable, the employer has no duty to engage in an interactive process or establish that it could not provide the requested accommodation because of undue hardship. Owens v. Governor's Off. of Student Achievement, 52 F.4th 1327, 1334 (11th Cir. 2022), cert. denied, — U.S. —, 143 S. Ct. 2465, 216 L.Ed.2d 434 (2023).
Here, Fryson submitted a request to continue teleworking after AHCA issued its post-pandemic call for all career service employees to return to in-office work on May 17, 2021. She did not suggest a time frame for when—or if—she would be able to resume in-office work. Her request for accommodation was accompanied by her primary-care physician's barebones note stating—without identifying Fryson's "underlying health issues"—that "it is medically necessary for the patient to continue to work from home." In determining whether Fryson's accommodation-request was reasonable, AHCA was permitted to—and did—request additional information from the doctor. While, in his response, the doctor identified Fryson's health condition as asthma, he otherwise related information that was self-reported by Fryson, information the truth of which was dubious at best. She told the doctor that the building where she worked was a "sick building" and that she "got sick as soon she was back in the building at work." AHCA knew that, in fact, Fryson had not returned to in-office work at that point; the new building where she would be working post-pandemic was monitored and was not known to be "sick"; and she had spent minimal time in the new building during the year she worked from home.
Based on the information it had at the time, AHCA had good reason to think that Fryson's request for an indefinite continuation of her work-from-home status was premised on inaccurate, if not untruthful, information. Fryson having failed to submit any objective medical documentation to support her indefinite accommodation request, AHCA denied the request. Rutledge, 2023 WL 5607586, at *8 ("an accommodation to telework indefinitely, unsupported by medical documentation about the need to do so, was not a reasonable accommodation"); Frazier-White v. Gee, 818 F.3d 1249, 1256 (11th Cir. 2016) (finding the plaintiff's request for "an indefinite extension of light-duty status was unreasonable as a matter of law"); Okafor v. Infuserve Am., Inc., No. 8:21cv2007-JLB/MRM, 2023 WL 3563600, at *13 (M.D. Fla. Mar. 6, 2023) (noting that "the Eleventh Circuit case law is clear that an indefinite pause on some aspect of a plaintiff's job as a result of a disability-related accommodation is unreasonable"). Given the dearth of information provided to AHCA by Fryson, AHCA's denial of Fryson's request for accommodation did not constitute a failure to accommodate under the RA.
AHCA's corporate representative, Jamie Skipper, testified that the Agency was pre pared to engage in an interactive process upon Fryson's return to the office, "but Ms. Fryson never returned to the office for us to finish that part of the process." ECF No. 26-10 at p. 21.
B.
Disparate treatment occurs when a disabled person is singled out for disadvantage because of his or her disability. Where, as here, a disparate treatment claim under the RA is based on circumstantial evidence, the claim is analyzed under the burden-shifting approach of McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973). Under McDonnell Douglas, a plaintiff bears the initial burden to demonstrate a prima facie case of disability discrimination. To establish such a prima facie case, a plaintiff must prove (1) that she has a disability; (2) that she was qualified to serve in her position, with or without reasonable accommodation, despite her disability; (3) that she suffered some adverse employment action because of her disability; and (4) that she was treated differently from similarly situated, non-disabled employees. Lewis v. City of Union City, 918 F.3d 1213, 1220-21 (11th Cir. 2019). If the plaintiff proves her prima facie case, the burden then shifts to the defendant to articulate a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for its decision. Once the employer carries its burden, the plaintiff must then show that the employer's proferred reason was not the real reason for its decision and that the real reason was, instead, discriminatory. Ctr. v. Sec'y, Dep't of Homeland Sec., Customs & Border Prot. Agency, 895 F.3d 1295, 1303 (11th Cir. 2018).
Fryson's disparate-treatment claim fails because she has not established the third and fourth prongs of her prima facie case of discrimination. To the extent Fryson suggests that she suffered an adverse action in the form of a constructive discharge, the court is unpersuaded. To establish a constructive discharge, a plaintiff must prove: "(1) that [her] working conditions were so intolerable that no reasonable person could be expected to endure them; (2) that the intolerable working conditions were a product of conduct that violated [the RA]; (3) that [the employer] was responsible for the intolerable working conditions; and (4) that [her] involuntary resignation resulted therefrom." Bozeman v. Per-Se Techs., Inc., 456 F. Supp. 2d 1282, 1354 (N.D. Ga. 2006); see also Henson v. City of Dundee, 682 F.2d 897, 907 (11th Cir. 1982) ("[W]hen an employee involuntarily resigns in order to escape intolerable and illegal employment requirements to which he or she is subjected because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, the employer has committed a constructive discharge in violation of Title VII."); Mandel v. M&Q Packaging Corp., 706 F.3d 157, 169 (3d Cir. 2013) (noting that a constructive discharge occurs when "the employer knowingly permitted conditions of discrimination in employment so intolerable that a reasonable person subject to them would resign" (internal quotation marks omitted)).
Fryson falls far short of showing that AHCA deliberately permitted intolerable discriminatory conditions to exist such that a reasonable person would feel he or she had to resign. The record establishes that Fryson voluntarily resigned because she allegedly believed that her newly assigned building was "sick" and would exacerbate her asthma, not because AHCA permitted discriminatory conditions to exist in that building. Her resignation did not constitute an adverse action under the RA.
To the extent Fryson asserts that AHCA discriminated against her by requiring her to return to office work, she has failed to show that she was treated differently from similarly situated, non-disabled employees. Indeed, she has not identified a single non-disabled employee who was granted permission to work from home on a permanent basis. Because she has presented no evidence to show a genuine dispute as to intentional discrimination, her disparate treatment claim does not survive AHCA's motion for summary judgment.
Even assuming, for the sake of argument, that Fryson could establish a prima facie case of discrimination, AHCA has articulated a non-discriminatory reason for its decision to deny Fryson's work-from-home request, namely, that the request was inadequately supported and for an indefinite period of time. Fryson has not shown that AHCA's articulated reason was pretext for discrimination.
Accordingly, it is ORDERED:
1. AHCA's motion for summary judgment (ECF No. 23) is GRANTED.
2. The clerk shall enter judgment stating: "Rasheeda Fryson's claims against the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration are DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE."
3. The clerk shall tax costs against Rasheeda Fryson.
DONE AND ORDERED this 29th day of September, 2023.