United States District Court, D. Connecticut
MEMORANDUM OF DECISION ON SUMMARY JUDGMENT
WARREN
W. EGINTON SENIOR UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
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 Human Resources 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 submits documentation 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 be off work
“until further notice.” The doctor's note did
not provide further specifics regarding the nature of
...