Employment – ADA — accommodation

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Civil

Employment – ADA — accommodation

Where an employee did not provide her employer with the information it needed and requested and the employer took reasonable steps even without this information to accommodate the employee’s disability, the employer was properly granted summary judgment on the employee’s ADA claim.

“The letter from Hoppe’s doctor, like the plaintiff’s letter in Steffes, lacked specific details about what steps were necessary to reasonably accommodate Hoppe’s disability. Although Hoppe allegedly told Ayers that she did not want an office in the same building as Professor Miller, there is no evidence that Ayers or the university’s human resources department—the recipient of Hoppe’s past doctor’s letters—knew that the recommendation had come from Hoppe’s doctor. And there is no dispute that the university sent Hoppe’s doctor at least two letters requesting specific information to no avail. Unlike in Sears, Hoppe’s doctor never provided an adequate response to the university’s request, but the university still offered Hoppe three different office locations. Consequently, no rational trier of fact could find that the university failed to participate in good faith in the ADA-required interactive process or that it failed to offer Hoppe a reasonable accommodation. Summary judgment was therefore appropriate on Hoppe’s ADA claim.”

Affirmed.

11-3358 Hoppe v. Lewis University

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Chang, J., Williams, J.