Lassen v. City of Hartford

308 A.3d 564

223 Conn.App. 285

Alfred LASSEN

v.CITY OF HARTFORD

(AC 45802)

Appellate Court of Connecticut.

Argued October 2, 2023

Officially Released January 9, 2024

James V. Sabatini, Newington, for the appellant (plaintiff).

Alexandria L. Voccio, with whom, on the brief, were David S. Monastersky and Channez M. Rogers, Hartford, for the appellee (defendant).

Cradle, Clark and Vertefeuille, Js.

VERTEFEUILLE, J.

₂₈₇The plaintiff, Alfred Lassen, appeals from the summary judgment rendered by the trial court in favor of the defendant, the city of Hartford, on his two count complaint, alleging disability discrimina- tion and retaliation in violation of General Statutes § 46a-60 of the Connecticut Fair Employment Practices Act (act), General Statutes § 46a-51 et seq., in connection with the defendant’s failure to rehire him as a police officer. On appeal, the plaintiff claims that the court erred in rendering summary judgment in favor of the defendant because it improperly concluded that no genuine issue of material fact existed as to whether (1) the plaintiff had failed to make out a prima facie case of disability discrimination and retaliation, and (2) the defendant’s proffered legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for not rehiring¹ him was pretextual. For the reasons that follow, we disagree and, accordingly, affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The following facts, which are undisputed, and procedural history are relevant to our resolution of this appeal. The defendant published a job posting for the position of Hartford police officer for persons who were not residents of Hartford. The plaintiff was not a resident of Hartford at the time he filed his application. ₂₈₈The job posting required all applicants to submit their applications online through the PoliceApp web portal. The plaintiff applied for the position online as required. At the time he applied for the position, the plaintiff had been diagnosed with narcolepsy, and the defendant was aware of this diagnosis. A lawsuit was already pending in which he made multiple claims against the defendant, including disability discrimination, failure to provide a reasonable accommodation, and retaliation for having requested a reasonable accommodation in connection with the defendant’s termination of his previous employment as a Hartford police officer.

The defendant engaged in a screening process of all the applications it received for the Hartford police officer position wherein an initial review and a second review were conducted by administrative clerks from the defendant’s Human Resources Department. During this screening process, applicants who did not submit with their applications a valid Complete Health & Injury Prevention physical ability assessment (CHIP card)² were eliminated from consideration for the position. As a result of this screening process, fifty-two applicants, including the plaintiff, were neither considered nor hired for the position because they had failed to submit the required CHIP card with their applications.

The plaintiff brought suit and filed a two count complaint alleging that the defendant, in violation of § 46a-60, failed to rehire him as a police officer because of his narcolepsy diagnosis (disability discrimination) and because he previously had filed a lawsuit against the ₂₈₉defendant (retaliation).³ The defendant thereafter filed a mo- tion for summary judgment, arguing that no genuine issue of material fact existed and that it was entitled to judgment as a matter of law on both claims of the plaintiff's complaint. The plaintiff filed an opposition to the defendant’s motion for summary judgment. The court granted the defendant’s motion for summary judgment on the ground that there existed no genuine issues of material fact that the plaintiff had failed to establish a prima facie case of either disability discrimination or retaliation. The court additionally determined that, even if it had assumed arguendo that the plaintiff had established a prima facie case of disability discrimination and retaliation, summary judgment was warranted as to both counts of the complaint because the defendant had offered a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its decision not to rehire the plaintiff, specifically, that the plaintiff had failed to submit the required CHIP card with his application and that no genuine issue of material fact existed as to whether the plaintiff had failed to establish that the defendant’s proffered reason was pretextual. This appeal followed.

We begin by setting forth the applicable standard of review. "The standards governing our review of a trial court’s decision to grant a motion for summary judgment are well established. Practice Book [§ 17-49] provides that summary judgment shall be rendered forth-with if the pleadings, affidavits and any other proof submitted show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. … In deciding a motion ₂₉₀for summary judgment, the trial court must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. … The party seeking summary judgment has the burden of showing the absence of any genuine issue [of] material facts which, under applicable principles of substantive law, entitle him to a judgment as a matter of law … and the party opposing such a motion must provide an evidentiary foundation to demonstrate the existence of a genuine issue of material fact." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) DiPietro v. Farmington Sports Arena, LLC, 306 Conn. 107, 115–16, 49 A.3d 951 (2012). The standard of review of a trial court’s decision granting a motion for summary judgment is plenary. Id., at 116, 49 A.3d 951.

[1–3] The standard applicable to the plaintiff’s claim of disability discrimination, which is based on disparate treatment, and retaliation is the McDonnell Douglas-Burdine ⁴ model of analysis. See Taing v. CAMRAC, LLC, 189 Conn. App. 23, 27–28, 206 A.3d 194 (2019) (discussing applicability of McDonnell Douglas-Burdine model to disparate treatment discrimination claims); Luth v. OEM Controls, Inc., judicial district of Ansonia-Milford, Docket No. CV-17-6025657-S (December 6, 2019) (reprinted at 203 Conn. App. 680, 252 A.3d 413) (discussing applicability of McDonnell Douglas-Burdine model to retaliation claims under act), aff’d, 203 Conn. App. 673, 252 A.3d 406 (2021). Under this framework, the plaintiff first must establish a prima facie case,⁵ then the burden of production shifts to the ₂₉₁defendant to rebut the presumption of discrimination by articulating a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its employment decision. Tomick v. United Parcel Service, Inc., 157 Conn. App. 312, 327, 115 A.3d 1143 (2015), aff'd, 324 Conn. 470, 153 A.3d 615 (2016). Once the defendant offers a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason, then the plaintiff has the burden to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the proffered reason is pretextual. Id.

[4] In the present case, the plaintiff challenges the propriety of the court’s determinations that no genuine issues of material fact existed with respect to his failure to make out a prima facie case of disability discrimination and retaliation and that the defendant’s employment decision was based on a nonpretextual, legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason. We conclude that, even if we were to assume without deciding, that the plaintiff had established a prima facie case of disability discrimination and retaliation, the court correctly concluded that there was no genuine issue of material fact that the defendant’s proffered legitimate nondiscriminatory and nonretaliatory reason for failing to rehire the plaintiff was not pretextual.⁶

₂₉₂The reason stated by the defendant in its memorandum of law appended to its motion for summary judgment for not rehiring the plaintiff was that he did not pass the defendant’s initial screening process because he failed to submit the required CHIP card with his application. In moving for summary judgment, the defendant submitted uncontroverted documentary evidence to substantiate that it had engaged in a screening process wherein all applicants who failed to submit a CHIP card with their application were denied consideration for the position. Specifically, in an affidavit attached to the defendant’s motion for summary judgment, Debra C. Carabillo, the Deputy Director of Human Resources and Labor Relations with the defendant, averred that an initial screening process of applicants who had responded to the defendant’s publication of a job posting for a police officer position for persons who were not residents of Hartford was conducted by a human resources administrative clerk, an employee of the defendant, to determine whether each applicant had submitted all of the required documentation as set forth in the job posting to establish that the applicant met the age, citizenship, education, driver’s license, and physical ability testing (CHIP card) qualifications. If an applicant did not sub- mit any of the required documentation, then the applicant was designated as "unqualified," and, if an applicant submitted all of the required documentation, then the applicant was designated as "qualified." She further stated that Brenda Perez, an administrative clerk with the defendant, reviewed the applications for a second time to confirm the designations for applicants as either qualified or unqualified based on whether they had submitted with their job application all of the required documentation. Carabillo also stated that no other factors were taken into consideration during this screening of applications and that the plaintiff "was deemed to not meet the minimum ₂₉₃requirements for the position solely due to his failure to provide a copy of a valid CHIP card, proving that he has passed the CHIP Physical Ability Assessment required for all applicants under the job posting …." Also attached to the defendant’s motion for summary...