Crano v. Graphic Packaging Corp.

F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
JUN 5 2003
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT
PATRICK FISHER
Clerk
SAMUEL CRANO,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v. No. 02-1166
(D.C. No. 00-D-877)
GRAPHIC PACKAGING (D. Colo.)
CORPORATION,
Defendant-Appellee.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT
Before TACHA , Chief Judge, HARTZ , and O’BRIEN , Circuit Judges.
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist the determination
of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is
therefore ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is
not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata,
and collateral estoppel. The court generally disfavors the citation of orders and
judgments; nevertheless, an order and judgment may be cited under the terms and
conditions of 10th Cir. R. 36.3.
Plaintiff Samuel Crano brought suit against his former employer, defendant
Graphic Packaging Corporation (GPC), alleging disparate treatment and disparate
impact under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and willful breach of
contract and promissory estoppel under state law. The district court granted
summary judgment for GPC on the ADA claims and dismissed the state law
claims without prejudice. Crano appeals only the disposition of the disparate
treatment claim. On de novo review, see Smith v. Diffee Ford-Lincoln-Mercury,
Inc. , 298 F.3d 955, 966 (10 th Cir. 2002), we affirm.
I
Crano worked as a packer inspector at GPC for over ten years. In July
1996 he went on indefinite medical leave for treatment of liver disease, which led
to an organ transplant in December 1997. GPC did not hire a replacement for
Crano. Rather, while Crano was on leave, GPC decided to eliminate the packer
inspector position generally and began phasing it out by attrition as the few other
packer inspectors retired or took different jobs. Although the latter were thus
“grandfathered” in the position, Crano was not entitled to that protection because
under GPC’s continuous-service and leave policies his employment status with
the company ended when his absence from work extended beyond a year.
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In late April 1998 Crano was cleared for work, but his post-surgical
condition, complicated by persistence of the infection necessitating the transplant,
led his physicians to recommend a four-hour work day (to be lengthened if and as
his endurance increased) and a restriction on lifting over twenty to thirty pounds.
See App. II at 290; App. I at 145; see also App. I at 146 (same restrictions noted
two years later); id. at 147-52 (same, with additional limitations). The
requirements of the job of packer inspector exceeded these limits. See App. I at
127-29 (written job description); id. at 181 (explanation of job demands by GPC
vice president of human resources); see also id. at 149 (letter from physician
noting that limitations leave Crano “unable to do manual labor, exertional work
(his old job)”). When Crano sought to return to GPC in the spring and early
summer of 1998, the formal accommodation requests he made through counsel
sought his reinstatement as a packer inspector, with a shortened shift of four
hours gradually increasing, if possible, to a standard workday. See App. II
at 291-96 (letters of May 29, July 7, July 17, and July 29, 1998). He did,
however, later ask for accommodation through reassignment to any other
positions for which he was qualified.
GPC responded that the packer inspector position had been eliminated and
that under the company’s continuous-service and leave policies, Crano was no
longer a current employee. See App. I at 41-42 (July 9, 1998 letter from GPC’s
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counsel). Crano was told that he could “apply for any available positions at
[GPC] on the same basis as any other non-employee applicant[, but] there are not
and will not be any available positions as packer inspector.” Id. at 41.
Crano filed this suit claiming that the policies invoked in his case had a
disparate impact on disabled employees and that GPC unreasonably failed to
accommodate his disability, both in violation of the ADA. He also asserted that
representations made to him with regard to his extended leave and subsequent
attempt to return to work gave rise to state law claims for breach of contract and
promissory estoppel. As noted, only the ADA accommodation claim is at issue on
this appeal. This claim required Crano to show that “(1) [he] is a disabled person
as defined by the ADA; (2) [he] is qualified, with or without reasonable
accommodation, to perform the essential functions of the job held or desired; and
(3) the employer discriminated against [him] because of [his] disability.” Doyal
v. Okla. Heart, Inc. , 213 F.3d 492, 495 (10 th Cir. 2000).
GPC defended on multiple legal grounds, several of which the district court
accepted in granting its motion for summary judgment. In particular, the district
court held that Crano was not able to perform the packer inspector job, even with
reasonable accommodation (which would not require creation of a new, part-time
version of the job), and that, in any event, the position had been eliminated by the
time he asked to return to work. As for Crano’s request for accommodation
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through reassignment to another job, the court noted three impediments, including
his loss of current-employment status under GPC’s continuous-service and leave
policies, his failure to initiate the interactive accommodation process regarding
reassignment in a timely manner, and the inconsistency between his request for
accommodation and his allegations in unrelated disability proceedings that he was
unfit to engage in any substantial gainful activity.
II
We need not consider all the alternative rationales in the district court’s
analysis and Crano’s corresponding arguments on appeal. It will suffice for our
disposition of this appeal to hold that (1) GPC had no duty to reinstate Crano as a
packer inspector after the position had been eliminated while he was on indefinite
leave, and (2) after Crano’s status as a current employee expired, GPC was not
required to reassign him to some other job within the company.
With respect to the reinstatement claim, Crano insists that a factual dispute
regarding the elimination of his position precluded summary judgment. He does
not contend that there is any evidence to undercut GPC’s showing that the packer
inspector position was being phased out generally through attrition and that his
job was not filled when he went on indefinite leave. Rather, Crano’s argument is
that he should have been grandfathered in the position, as were those working as
packer inspectors when GPC decided to eliminate the position. In that event, he
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argues, his job should have been available for purposes of ADA accommodation
when he sought to return to work.
The flaw in this argument is that Crano did not remain a packer inspector
during his extended leave. On the contrary, under company policies he lost the
status and attendant prerogatives of a current employee long before he obtained a
limited work clearance and asked GPC to provide him a part-time version of his
old, now-nonexistent job. As the district court noted, the ADA does not require
the creation of jobs or vacancies to accommodate a disabled worker. See Smith v.
Midland Brake, Inc. , 180 F.3d 1154, 1174-75 (10 th Cir. 1999) (en banc).
Moreover, Crano cannot premise his ADA claim on GPC’s failure to make an
exception to its leave policies as a form of accommodation to his condition–this
court and others have repeatedly held that maintaining an employee on indefinite
leave while reserving a job opening for his possible return is not a reasonable
obligation to be imposed on employers under the ADA. See Boykin v.
ATC/VanCom of Colo., L.P., 247 F.3d 1061, 1064-65 (10 th Cir. 2001); Parker v.
Columbia Pictures Indus. , 204 F.3d 326, 338 (2d Cir. 2000); Watkins v. J & S Oil
Co. , 164 F.3d 55, 61-62 (1 st Cir. 1998).
Crano’s loss of current-employment status under GPC’s continuous-service
and leave policies is also fatal to his claim for accommodation by reassignment.
This court took pains in Midland Brake to clarify a critical distinction between an
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employer’s particularized, affirmative duty to accommodate a disabled employee
by reassignment to a vacant position and an employer’s broader, neutral duty
simply to consider job applicants without discrimination based on disability. See
Midland Brake , 180 F.3d at 1164-70. The ADA secures the latter guarantee for
the workforce at large, see id. at 1164 (citing 42 U.S.C. § 12112(a)), whereas the
former is “one of the forms of reasonable accommodation specifically mentioned
by the [ADA] to be utilized if necessary and reasonable to keep an existing
disabled employee employed by the company,” id. at 1165. To qualify for job
reassignment–which bypasses the normal hiring process–“the person must
therefore be an existing employee.” Id. at 1164. We agree with the district court
that Crano’s request for reassignment presupposed the employment status he had
lost while on extended leave. Thus, when GPC denied his request but told him
that he could “apply for any available positions at [GPC] on the same basis as any
other non-employee applicant,” with the assurance that GPC “ha[d] no intention
of discriminating against him in any way,” App. I at 41-42, GPC complied with
the pertinent legal obligations imposed by the ADA.
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The judgment of the United States District Court for the District of
Colorado is AFFIRMED.
Entered for the Court
Harris L Hartz
Circuit Judge
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