Jury Instructions

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Anthony Sansone v. Megan J. Brennan

Case No.: 17-3534; 17-3632

Officials: KANNE, ROVNER, and BARRETT, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Jury Instructions

Tony Sansone, who is confined to a wheelchair, needs a parking place with room to deploy his van’s wheelchair ramp. For years, the Postal Service, his employer, provided him one. But in 2011, it took that spot away and failed to provide him with a suitable replacement. Sansone then retired and sued the Service under the Rehabilitation Act for failing to accommodate his disability. A jury returned a verdict in his favor and Sansone recovered compensatory damages, as well as back and front pay.

The Service asks us to vacate the district court’s judgment because of two jury instructions: one about an employee’s obligation to cooperate with his employer in identifying a reasonable accommodation and the other about how the jury should evaluate the Service’s expert witness. We hold that the district court did not err with respect to the former, but its instruction about the expert was both wrong and prejudicial. The Service also appeals the district court’s award of back and front pay, but it forfeited that argument by failing to raise it.

Vacated and remanded in part. Affirmed in part.

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Derek A Hawkins is trademark corporate counsel for Harley-Davidson. Hawkins oversees the prosecution and maintenance of the Harley-Davidson’s international trademark portfolio in emerging markets.