Helmke v. City of Port St. Lucie

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RENEE HELMKE, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF PORT ST. LUCIE, Defendant.

No. 22-cv-14398-Cannon/McCabe

United States District Court, S.D. Florida

April 11, 2023

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION

RYON M. MCCABE, U.S. MAGISTRATE JUDGE

THIS CAUSE comes before the Court upon Defendant's Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff's Amended Complaint (“Motion”) (DE 11), which was referred to the undersigned by United States District Judge Aileen M. Cannon (DE 12). For the reasons set forth below, the undersigned RECOMMENDS that the Motion be GRANTED IN PART AND DENIED IN PART.

I. BACKGROUND

This is a disability discrimination case against the City of Port St Lucie (“City”). Plaintiff alleges three counts under the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”): (1) failure to accommodate, (2) hostile work environment, and (3) wrongful discharge under a disparate impact theory (DE 9). The Court accepts the following facts as true.

Plaintiff is a disabled person who suffers from Lupus and related autoimmune issues (DE 9 ¶ 2). From July 10, 2017, to December 22, 2021, Plaintiff worked for the City as a Special Assessment Accountant (DE 9 ¶¶ 1, 35). In or around the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 Plaintiff requested an accommodation to allow her to work remotely due to her disability (DE 9 ¶ 12). The City granted this request (DE 9 ¶ 12).

In or around August 2020, when many staff members began to return to work in-person, Plaintiff requested permission to continue to work remotely (DE 9 ¶ 14). Plaintiff also requested further accommodations including flex time and additional technology to facilitate remote work, such as a second computer monitor, a detached mouse, and an advanced version of an Adobe software application (DE 9 ¶¶ 14-18). The City granted Plaintiff's request to continue remote work (DE 9 ¶ 19), but denied her other requests (DE 9 ¶ 20). Plaintiff's supervisor also told her it “took balls” to ask for additional technology “while [Plaintiff] chooses to work from home” (DE 9 ¶ 21).

Thereafter, at some unspecified time, the City required Plaintiff to begin submitting lists of tasks that she completed each week while working from home (DE 9 ¶ 24). The City did not impose this requirement on other similarly situated, but non-disabled, employees (DE 9 ¶ 24). In the Spring of 2021, Plaintiff's doctor authorized her to return to work in-person twice per week, but only for four-hour periods at a time (DE 9 ¶ 26). At that point, Plaintiff's supervisor began “harassing” her as to when Plaintiff would increase the number of in-person workdays (DE 9 ¶ 27).

Later, on December 8, 2021, Plaintiff's physician advised her that she could return to work full-time, but that she could not work in-person and could only work remotely (DE 9 ¶ 30). When Plaintiff notified the City of her doctor's restrictions, Plaintiff's supervisor took the position that Plaintiff could no longer perform the essential functions of her job while working remotely (DE 9 ¶ 32). The supervisor took this position even though Plaintiff had been performing her job remotely since the pandemic began, and the City had previously allowed other similarly situated, but non-disabled, persons to work remotely in the past (DE 9 ¶¶ 31, 34, 36). On or about December 22, 2021, the City discharged Plaintiff, purportedly due to her inability to perform the essential functions of her job while working remotely (DE 9 ¶ 35).

On May 3, 2022, Plaintiff filed a Charge of Discrimination with the Florida Commission on Human Relations and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”), alleging discrimination based on disability (DE 1-1). The EEOC issued a Notice of Right to Sue on or about September 6, 2022 (DE 1-2).

Thereafter, on December 1, 2022, Plaintiff filed a complaint, which she amended on January 24, 2023, asserting the following claims under the ADA:

Count I Failure to Accommodate

Count II Harassment Based on Disability

Count III Disability Discrimination

(DE 9 at 7, 9-10). This Motion followed, seeking dismissal of all counts pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6).

II. LEGAL STANDARD

In evaluating a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, a court must accept a plaintiff's allegations as true and construe them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. See Pielage v. McConnell, 516 F.3d 1282, 1284 (11th Cir. 2008). Although Rule 8(a)(2) requires only “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief,” a mere “formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007). Instead, “a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (cleaned up). “A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Id.

III. DISCUSSION

The City moves to dismiss all three counts of the operative complaint. The Court will address each count in turn.

A. Count I: Failure to Accommodate

Count I alleges the City discriminated against Plaintiff by failing to provide reasonable accommodations for her disability (DE 9 ¶¶ 37-45). To state a prima facie claim for failure to accommodate under the ADA, a plaintiff must allege facts that show: (1) she is disabled; (2) she is a qualified individual, meaning able to perform the essential functions of the job; and (3) she was discriminated against because of her disability by way of the defendant's failure to provide a reasonable accommodation. Russell v. City of Tampa, 652 Fed.Appx. 765, 767 (11th Cir. 2016) (cleaned up). Here, the City denied multiple requested accommodations, each of which the Court will address in turn.

1. Plaintiff's August 2020 Requests

First, in mid-August 2020, Plaintiff requested flex time, a second monitor, a detached mouse, and a more advanced version of the Adobe program in order to facilitate her at-home work (DE 9 ¶¶ 14-16, 18). The City argues the Court should dismiss this claim because (1) it is time-barred, and (2) Plaintiff did not need the requested accommodations to perform her job. The Court agrees.

a. Time Bar

The ADA imposes a 300-day time limit for aggrieved plaintiffs to file a charge of discrimination. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e)(1). Because a claim for failure to accommodate involves discrete acts of alleged discrimination rather than a continuing violation, a plaintiff must file an EEOC charge within 300 days of the denial of the accommodation; otherwise, the claim is time barred. See Abram v. Fulton Cnty. Gov't, 598 Fed.Appx. 672, 676 (11th Cir. 2015).

Here, Plaintiff alleges she requested flex time and additional technology in “mid-August 2020” (DE 9 ¶¶ 14, 18, 42-43). The 300-day deadline to file an EEOC charge based on this conduct therefore expired in or around mid-June of 2021. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e)(1). Plaintiff did not file her EEOC charge, however, until May 3, 2022 (DE 1-1). As such, Plaintiff cannot bring a failure-to-accommodate claim based on these allegations.

To overcome this hurdle, Plaintiff urges the Court to interpret her EEOC charge liberally and to allow the claim to proceed because it is “like or related” to other timely allegations made in her EEOC charge. The Court cannot do so. As the Supreme Court recognized, “discrete discriminatory acts are not actionable if time barred, even when they are related to acts alleged in timely filed charges.” Nat'l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 113 (2002) (emphasis added). “Each discrete discriminatory act starts a new clock for filing charges alleging that act.” Id. Here, the denial of Plaintiff's request for flex time and additional technology constituted discrete discriminatory acts. Given that Plaintiff did not file an EEOC charge within 300 days of these discrete acts, she cannot pursue claims based on this conduct.

b. Necessity of the Requested Accommodation

The Court also finds, based on Plaintiff's own allegations, that she did not need the additional technology to perform her job. “[I]f an employee does not require an accommodation to perform her essential job functions, then the employer is under no obligation to make an accommodation, even if the employee requests an accommodation that is reasonable and could be easily provided.” D'Onofrio v. Costco Wholesale Corp., 964 F.3d 1014, 1022 (11th Cir. 2020) (citing Albright v. Columbia Cty. Bd. of Educ., 135 Fed.Appx. 344, 346 (11th Cir. 2005) (per curiam) (“[T]he record clearly shows that [plaintiff] did not require an accommodation to perform her job. It is undisputed that [plaintiff] performed her bus driving duties without an accommodation[.]”)).

Here Plaintiff acknowledges that she “found a way to perform the duties of her job” “even without the additional technology” (DE 9 ¶ 23). Indeed, Plaintiff does not allege she needed the technology at all, but rather, that “providing [the technology] would not have created an undue hardship for Defendant” (DE 9 ¶ 44). Such allegations fall short of a failure-to-accommodate claim. See Beasley v. O'Reilly Auto Parts, 559 F.Supp.3d 1226, 1237 (S.D. Ala. 2021) (“[W]hile the provision of these accommodations might have improved [plaintiff's] employment experience, [plaintiff] has failed to point to evidence indicating that [defendant's] failure to provide any of these accommodations actually prevented him from performing the ‘essential functions' of his job.”). For all of these reasons, the Court recommends the Motion be granted to the extent Plaintiff seeks to pursue a failure-to-accommodate claim based on her August 2020 requ...