Employment — ADA

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Civil

Employment — ADA

Where there is conflicting evidence whether jobs not offered to a disabled employee required overtime, summary judgment should not have been granted to the employer.

“Feldman points to several straight-time positions that were open during his seven month lay-off that he believes Olin should have reassigned him to, including two straight-time shifts in the bag house and four adjustor positions. Olin retorts that all of these required overtime as an essential function of the job. Once again, however, we cannot resolve this in Olin’s favor at the summary judgment stage, because the evidence on each of these points is mixed. Notably, Olin concedes that overtime is not listed as a required job feature in the written job descriptions. Olin counters that it should not have to list a requirement that is required by all of its jobs, but Feldman points to evidence of some jobs that do specifically list mandatory overtime as a requirement in their written descriptions. Feldman has also furnished data indicating that overtime is rarely worked by bag house operators. On the other hand, Olin argues that the consequences of exempting bag house workers from overtime would be dire, as fires sometimes break out that require all essential personnel to work until the fires are put out, even if that requires overtime. There is evidence, in short, going both ways, and so we cannot conclude that overtime was an essential function of the bag house or adjustor positions. See D’Angelo, 422 F.3d at 1232-33 (evidence that employees rarely performed a task created a genuine issue of material fact regarding whether the task was essential).”

Reversed and Remanded.

10-3955 Feldman v. Olin Corp.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, Murphy, J., Wood, J.