Rose v. Eagle Express Lines, Inc.

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DAVID ROSE, Plaintiff, v. EAGLE EXPRESS LINES, INC., et al, Defendants.

Civil Action No. 21-2784

United States District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania

November 7, 2023

MEMORANDUM OPINION

WENDY BEETLESTONE, J.

Plaintiff David Rose seeks money damages from his employer and its successors in interest, Defendants Eagle Express Lines, Inc 10 Roads Express, LLC, 10 Roads Logistics, LLC, and Lone Mountain Truck Leasing, LLC (collectively “Defendants”), for violating a variety of state and federal statutes. The gravamen of Rose's Amended Complaint is that he was subjected to unlawful discrimination after requesting time off to undergo cardiovascular surgery. Presently pending is Defendants' motion for summary judgment on all claims, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56. For the reasons that follow, the motion will be granted in part and denied in part.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

Unless otherwise noted, the following facts are undisputed. Rose is a truck driver who has maintained a Commercial Driver's License for approximately 40 years. He began working for Defendant Eagle Express in 2016, when he was 63 years old and he hauled mail on the company's Philadelphia-to-Melborn, Ohio route. As a commercial truck driver, Rose was required to possess a valid Department of Transportation (“DOT”) physical examination certificate and meet all DOT physical regulatory requirements. In September 2019, Rose was issued a one-year medical certificate following a physical examination: This despite suffering from various cardiovascular conditions which he managed with medication. The following summer, though, blockages were identified in Rose's heart and legs, and he needed immediate cardiovascular surgery to install stents to relieve those blockages. He requested a medical leave of absence to undergo this procedure, pursuant to the Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”), 29 U.S.C. § 2601 et seq., which Defendants approved. The surgery was a success, and by September 2020, Rose's personal cardiologist cleared him to return to work.

Because his previous DOT physical certificate had expired during his FMLA leave, Defendants directed Rose to Dr. Ronald Wolfe for a new physical examination. Rose met with Dr. Wolfe, who concluded that Rose had “no impairment to driving” and issued him a three-month medical certificate. Rose provided this certificate to his manager, Denise Beckel, who refused to accept it. At her deposition, Beckel testified that during her review of Rose's medical record, she identified “discrepanc[ies]” between this physical and Rose's September 2019 physical. Specifically, she explained that on his most recent medical history questionnaire, Rose failed to identify that he had several conditions-including “heart disease, heart attack, bypass or other heart problems”-which he had disclosed on previous years' questionnaires. (For his part, Rose testified that while some of the responses on his 2020 questionnaire were inadvertently checked “yes” rather than “no,” Dr. Wolfe was nonetheless aware of his medical history when he issued the medical certificate.) As a result of these discrepancies, Beckel provided Rose's medical file to a third-party medical review officer, Dr. Bruce Horton, for a second opinion.

Dr. Horton reviewed Rose's medical records and identified “marginal recertification issues.” Specifically, his report described “mild to moderately impaired Left Ventricular function with an ejection fraction of 39%,” which he described as “at best [] of concern.” He further noted that Rose was overweight but had not obtained a sleep study, and that while Rose's symptoms had improved, nothing “in []his presented documents indicated he was without symptoms.”

Pointing to the results of Dr. Horton's review and the discrepancies in Rose's medical history questionnaires, Beckel and her manager, Kimberly Arnold, refused to permit Rose to return to work as a truck driver-notwithstanding the medical certificate he obtained from Dr. Wolfe. In an email dated October 9, 2020, Arnold informed Rose that in order to be reinstated, he was required to show “40% or greater left ventricular ejection fraction (cardiologist release specifically noting this),” blood pressure readings on three different days below 140/90, and “confirmation of being in the process of getting sleep apnea tested .... Results must be taken to original requesting medical examiner.” Rose's request that his employer pay for the sleep apnea study was denied. He testified that during these back-and-forths with his employer, HR personnel informed him that they did not want him to return to work because “they didn't want me to die under the steering wheel.”

IL LEGAL STANDARDS

A party is entitled to summary judgment if it shows “that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(a). “By its very terms, this standard provides that the mere existence of some alleged factual dispute between the parties will not defeat an otherwise properly supported motion for summary judgment; the requirement is that there be no genuine issue of material fact.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 247-48 (1986). “Inferences to be drawn from the underlying facts contained in the evidential sources must be viewed in the light most favorable to the party opposing the motion.” Peters Twp. Sch. Dist. v. Hartford Acc. & Indem. Co., 833 F.2d 32, 34 (3d Cir. 1987).

“A genuine issue is present when a reasonable trier of fact, viewing all of the record evidence, could rationally find in favor of the non-moving party in light of his burden of proof.” Doe v. Abington Friends Sch., 480 F.3d 252, 256 (3d Cir. 2007) (citing Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322-26 (1986); Anderson, 477 U.S. at 248-52). “The non-moving party may not merely deny the allegations in the moving party's pleadings; instead he must show where in the record there exists a genuine dispute over a material fact.” Id. (citation omitted). A moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law where the “nonmoving party has failed to make a sufficient showing on an essential element of her case with respect to which she has the burden of proof.” Celotex, 477 U.S. at 323.

III. DISCUSSION

Rose's Amended Complaint presses a number of claims, which fall into four overarching categories: (1) age discrimination, in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”), 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq., the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (“PHRA”), 42 Pa. C.S. § 951 et seq., and the Philadelphia Fair Practices Ordinance (“PFPO”), Phila. Code § 91101 et seq.; (2) disability discrimination, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq., the PHRA, and the PFPO; (3) failure to accommodate and retaliation, in violation of the ADA, PHRA, and PFPO; and, (4) violations of Rose's FMLA rights.^[1]Each category of claims will be addressed in turn.

A. Age Discrimination^[2]

i. Administrative Exhaustion

At the outset, Defendants argue that Rose's age discrimination claims fail as a matter of law, as he did not exhaust his administrative remedies before filing this suit. Specifically, they maintain that the charge Rose filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) was “completely devoid of any allegations that he was discriminated against . . . on the basis of this age.”

A plaintiff must generally exhaust all administrative remedies before bringing a claim for judicial relief. Robinson v. Dalton, 107 F.3d 1018, 1020 (3d Cir. 1997). “[T]he main purpose of exhaustion requirements is to provide courts with the benefit of an agency's expertise and serve judicial economy by having the administrative agency compile the factual record and by giving agencies the opportunity to settle disputes through conference, conciliation, and persuasion.” Higgins, 2023 WL 5309893, at *7 (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, before filing an age discrimination lawsuit, plaintiffs must first file a charge with the EEOC and/or its state counterpart. 29 U.S.C. § 626(d); see Kopko v. Lehigh Valley Health Network, 776 Fed.Appx. 768, 773 (3d Cir. 2019). To determine whether this administrative charge satisfies the exhaustion requirement, courts consider “whether the acts alleged in the subsequent [judicial complaint] are fairly within the scope of the prior [administrative charge], or the investigation arising therefrom.” Kopko, 776 Fed.Appx. at 773 (quoting Antol v. Perry, 82 F.3d 1291, 1295 (3d Cir. 1996) (alterations in original)).

Here the record shows that within the time limit set by the relevant statutes, Rose filed a charge with the EEOC and Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission alleging that despite being medically cleared to do so, his employer “refused to let me return to work or follow up with me about scheduling me.” The record further shows that on the applicable form, Rose checked the box indicating that “age” was a cause of this discrimination, and his narrative described himself as “a 67-year-old male”-placing him within the protections of ADEA, PHRA, and PFPO. This was sufficient to put the agencies on notice that Rose believed himself to be the victim of age discrimination, permitting them to open the investigations into the same. And while Defendants argue Rose alleged “no facts or allegations supporting a claim of discrimination . . . based on age,” his administrative charge in fact reported the comment from HR personnel about not “d[ying] behind the wheel” that now serves as the basis for his ADEA claim, as discussed below. Particularly in light of the Third Circuit's admonition that “the scope of the original charge should be liberally construed,” as administrative charges ...