Lorius v. Amedisys Holding, LLC

ATUSTA LORIUS, Plaintiff, v. AMEDISYS HOLDING, LLC, Defendant.

No. 3:17 CV 292 (WWE)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF CONNECTICUT

October 23, 2018

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION ON SUMMARY JUDGMENT

In this action, plaintiff Atusta Lorius alleges that defendant Amedisys Holding, L.L.C., violated the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA") and the Connecticut Fair Employment Practices Act ("CFEPA") when it terminated her without providing her with reasonable accommodation for her disability. Plaintiff also alleges that defendant retaliated against her for filing a workers' compensation claim in violation of Connecticut General Statutes § 31-290a.

Defendant has filed a motion for summary judgment on plaintiff's complaint. For the following reasons, the motion for summary judgment will be granted.

A. BACKGROUND

The parties have submitted statements of undisputed facts, exhibits and affidavits. These materials reflect the following factual background.

Defendant is a home health care company providing home health and hospice care to patients throughout the United States. In 2008, defendant hired plaintiff to work as a home health aide. As a home health aide, plaintiff provided "personal care" assistance to patients in their homes, including, inter alia, helping patients with bathing or showering, changing clothes, preparing food or meals, and taking a patient's blood pressure or temperature. As part of her job duties as a Home Health Aide for defendant, plaintiff drove to patient homes to provide the personal care assistance to the Company's patients.

During plaintiff's employment, defendant maintained certain employment policies that applied to employees including plaintiff. The Employee Handbook set forth these policies, which include the promotion of equal employment opportunity and prohibition of discrimination based on disability or any other legally protected characteristic, in all employment related decisions.

Under the Procedure for Requesting an Accommodation policy, the Employee Handbook states:

Qualified individuals with disabilities who experience difficulty performing their jobs may make requests for reasonable accommodations . . . to an employee relations manager in the HumanResources Department. On receipt of an employee's accommodation request . . . the Company will meet with the requesting individual to discuss and identify the precise limitations resulting from the disability and the potential accommodation that Amedisys might make to help overcome those limitations. Employees are expected to fully cooperate in the accommodation process. The duty to cooperate includes making every effort to provide management with current medical information as needed for the Company to ascertain its obligations and the employee's rights. Employees who do not meaningfully cooperate in the accommodation process may waive the right to accommodation.

Also pursuant to the Employee Handbook, defendant maintains an Attendance Policy that emphasizes that attendance is critical to the performance of an employee's job duties. Pursuant to the Attendance Policy, an employee who is out of work on three consecutive days without obtaining approval from his or her supervisor is subject to termination of employment.

Defendant utilizes a third-party administrator to administer its employees' Family Medical Leave Act ("FMLA") requests. The third-party administrator FMLASource corresponds with employees who request leave in accordance with the FMLA.

Defendant also uses a third-party claims administrator to process workers' compensation claims. Pursuant to its standard procedure for the handling of workers' compensation claims, defendant submitsdocumentation relating to an employee's initial report of injury, and then the third-party claims administrator handles the correspondence, administration, and decisionmaking regarding an employee's claim and eligibility for workers' compensation benefits.

Plaintiff filed claims for workers' compensation benefits while working for defendant in October 2009 and again in February 2011. After each such submission, plaintiff returned to work without incident.

In February of 2015, while attending to one of defendant's patients, plaintiff assertedly slipped and fell, injuring her left knee. Plaintiff submitted a First Report of Injury Form relating to her February 2015 injury. Defendant provided plaintiff with the two weeks off from work that she requested relating to her February 2015 injury. In accordance with its standard practice, defendant assisted plaintiff with the submission of her February 2015 First Report of Injury to defendant's third-party workers' compensation claims administrator, which handled plaintiff's claim for workers' compensation benefits.

On October 28, 2015, plaintiff allegedly fell outside of a patient's home, again injuring her left knee. On or about October 30, 2015, plaintiff provided defendant with a doctor's note, indicating that she needed to beoff work "until further notice." The doctor's note did not provide further specifics regarding the nature of plaintiff's injury, physical limitations, or the expected duration of her absence or putative need for medical leave.

On November 4, 2015, defendant sent plaintiff notice that her physician would need to complete and return a FMLA-based, Certification of Health Care Provider ("CHCP") form for evaluation of her leave request. In a letter, defendant outlined how plaintiff should substantiate her request for leave and administration of the leave request process.

On November 16, 2015, plaintiff returned her initial CHCP. The fields relating to the start and end of her anticipated leave were completed with the notation "TBD."

FMLASource sent plaintiff a letter dated November 18, 2015 to her home address and an email to her email address explaining that the November 16, 2015 CHCP was deficient, and that plaintiff was expected to return an updated and fully completed CHCP within seven days for evaluation of the leave request.

On December 15, 2015, plaintiff submitted a second CHCP to FMLASource. This CHCP indicated that Plaintiff needed leave from February 15, 2016 through "TBD" for "knee osteoarthritis" and "kneearthritis," and that she would also need "intermittent" leave during that time.

On January 7, 2016, plaintiff's physician returned an updated CHCP estimating that plaintiff would need to be out of work from February 15, 2016 through May 15, 2016 "(approximately)."

On January 11, 2016, FMLASource sent plaintiff a letter to her home address and an email to her email address indicating that her leave from February 15, 2016 through May 15, 2016 would be approved. That same letter, however, also notified plaintiff that her leave from work prior to February 15, 2016 was denied due to lack of the required certification from her health care provider.

On January 25, 2016, defendant tendered plaintiff a letter, noting that she could be subject to disciplinary action because her leave request beginning on October 29, 2015 through January 20, 2016 had been denied.

In early February 2016, FMLASource received Short Term Disability (STD) documentation from defendant's STD provider, Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada, which allowed FMLASource to retroactively approve Plaintiff's FMLA-related leave from October 29, 2015 through January 20, 2016.

On February 11, 2016, FMLASource sent plaintiff a letter at her homeaddress and an email to her email address notifying her that her leave request beginning after February 15, 2016, which FMLASource extended to begin on February 17, 2016 under the Connecticut FMLA, was no longer approved because plaintiff had exhausted all of her allotted federal and state FMLA leave time by that date.

On February 12, 2016, FMLASource sent plaintiff a letter to her home address and an email to her email address; this correspondence informed her that if she still required leave beyond February 17, 2016, or other reasonable accommodation under the ADA or analogous state law, she would need to return the appropriate medical documentation in support of such a request. The letter attached the form that plaintiff needed to have filled out by a health care professional. The letter requested that plaintiff return the requisite form within fifteen (15) days and, that she should inform FMLASource if she was unable to return the form within that time period.

By March 2, 2016, plaintiff had neither communicated with FMLASource, nor returned the documentation requested in FMLASource's February 12, 2016 letter.

On March 2, 2016, FMLASource sent plaintiff a letter and an email notifying her of her failure to provide the requested medical documentationin support of her request for additional leave pursuant to the ADA and state law.

On or about March 16, 2016, defendant's Employee Relations Consultant of HR Governance, Compliance, and Diversity, Taylor Garrity ("Garrity"), reviewed plaintiff's leave file. According to her affidavit, Garrity determined that plaintiff had exhausted her entitlement to federal FMLA leave on January 20, 2016, and under Connecticut's FMLA on February 17, 2016; that plaintiff had not responded to defendant or FMLASource's correspondence since January 7, 2016; and that she had voluntarily abandoned her employment.

On March 16, 2016, defendant informed plaintiff of her termination based on her failure to come to work or otherwise submit any documentation to request an accommodation. Plaintiff has agreed that, on this date, there was nothing in the form of any accommodation that defendant could have provided to plaintiff in order to enable her to work as a Home Health Aide. At her deposition on December 29, 2017, plaintiff testified that she does not believe that she will be able to go back to work as a Home Health Aide at any point.

In response to an Interrogatory regarding her efforts to mitigate her damages, plaintiff stated: "N/A. I am unable to work because of knee injury and am receiving...