By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//October 20, 2014//
U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit
Civil
Employment – ADA — accommodation
The district court erred in ruling on summary judgment that a nursing home could refuse to employ a hairdresser who was unable to move the patients around the facilities in wheelchairs.
“What the best estimate of the plaintiff’s time spent wheeling is can’t be determined on a motion for summary judgment. A trial is required. The district judge thought the disparity in time estimates was not a real dispute because, however much or little time the plaintiff had spent before her operation in pushing wheelchairs, it was an essential part of her job. But it wasn’t essential if it was so small a part that it could be reassigned to other employees at a negligible cost to the employer.”
“The district judge also thought the plaintiff’s estimate of the time she had spent pushing wheelchairs ‘vague and inconclusive,’ yet he said nothing about the implausibility of Wall’s estimate of how much time the plaintiff had devoted to that task. Again the judge was attempting to resolve a genuine factual dispute without a trial.”
Reversed and Remanded.
13-3661 Kauffman v. Petersen Health Care VII LLC
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois, McCuskey, J., Posner, J.