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Employee with SAD wins suit

By: dmc-admin//October 12, 2009//

Employee with SAD wins suit

By: dmc-admin//October 12, 2009//

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The “winter blues” are nothing new to anyone living in Wisconsin.

But in light of a recent Seventh Circuit opinion, employers need to think about accommodating employees with an extreme form of it known as seasonal affective disorder, or SAD.

On Oct. 6, the court reversed a district court’s grant of summary judgment for a school district, and held that a factual issue existed regarding whether the district reasonably accommodated a teacher with the disorder, as required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Renae Ekstrand was an elementary school teacher in the Somerset school district from 2000-2005. For the 05-06 school year, she requested and received a move from kindergarten to first grade. However, the room she was assigned to lacked exterior windows.

Ekstrand told the principal she had SAD and would have difficulty in a room with only artificial light, and repeatedly requested an alternate room with natural light. Two such rooms were available, but the district did not reassign her, attempting to deal with the problem in various other ways.

In October, 2005, Ekstrand went on medical leave. On Nov. 28, her psychologist informed the school that natural light was the only way to accommodate her SAD. Still, the district refused to reassign her to a different room, and Ekstrand never taught in the district again.

In 2008, she sued the district under the ADA, but U.S. District Court Judge Barbara B. Crabb granted summary in favor of the district. Ekstrand v. School District of Somerset, 603 F.Supp.2d 1196 (W.D.Wis. 2009).

Ekstrand appealed, and the Seventh Circuit reversed in an opinion by Judge William J. Bauer.

Prior to the Nov. 28 notification from the psychologist, the court found that the school district acted reasonably; but after that, it did not.

The court concluded that, once the school district became aware of the medical necessity of natural light, it was obligated to accommodate that need, unless it would impose an “undue hardship.”

Finding that two rooms were available — one was empty, and another teacher was willing to switch rooms with Ekstrand — the court held that the costs involved in making the accommodation were sufficiently modest that a jury could find them required under the ADA, and reversed.

Judge Terence T. Evans wrote a concurring opinion “to highlight a matter that should be considered when this case lands back in the lap of the district judge.”

Noting that the case involves not just an employee and employer, as in a typical ADA case, but first-grade students, Evans opined, “I can’t imagine that many parents would be too pleased to have their first-graders in a classroom taught by a teacher who, to quote the court’s opinion, suffered from ‘fatigue, anxiety, hypervigilance, tearfulness, racing thoughts, and trouble organizing tasks’ plus ‘inability to concentrate . . . retrieve words, make decisions . . . focus on the needs of her students . . . hypersomnia . . . panic attacks, uncontrollable crying, inability to eat, and thoughts of suicide.”

Evans suggested that the district court take “a close look on remand” whether Ekstrand was in fact a “qualified individual” in the fall of 2005.

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