UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FIFTH CIRCUIT
_________________
No. 97-41019
(Summary Calendar)
_________________
QUEEN ESTHER OWENS,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
versus
TRANE COMPANY, a Division of American
Standard, Incorporated,
Defendant - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
For the Eastern District of Texas
(6:96-CV-362)
May 14, 1998
Before WIENER, BARKSDALE, and EMILIO M. GARZA, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:*
Queen Esther Owens appeals from a judgment entered against her
after trial before a jury, claiming that the trial court erred in
denying Owens’ motion for judgment as a matter of law as to whether
Owens could perform the essential functions of her job as that term
*
Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined
that this opinion should not be published and is not precedent
except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR. R.
47.5.4.
is defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”). Finding
no error, we affirm.
I
Owens worked in a manufacturing plant of Trane Company, a
division of American Standard, Incorporated (“Trane”). After
suffering work-related injuries that limited her ability to work,
Owens was assigned to a light-duty job that met the restrictions
imposed by her treating physician. This job was a “partial” job in
the valve assembly room))one that allowed different workers to
share one job by each doing separate pieces of the job. Owens was
performing this job when Trane underwent a reduction in force in
September 1995. Because of her seniority, Owens was not laid off
in the reduction. However, as a result of the reduction, the
partial job she had been performing in valve assembly was
eliminated when it was consolidated with other jobs. The new,
consolidated position in the valve assembly room required the
worker to perform tasks that were incompatible with Owens’
restrictions.1 In accordance with the collective bargaining
agreement under which Owens worked, Trane attempted to place her in
an available job, but none that was compatible with her work
1
When Owens was laid off, she was working under the
following restrictions: “no use of handheld pneumatic tools, no
forceful gripping with right hand, no climbing, no squatting, job
should permit alternating sitting and standing, ground-level work
only, and no operation of high-speed machinery or forklifts.”
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restrictions was available. Owens was therefore laid off for lack
of suitable work.
Owens subsequently brought suit against Trane, alleging that
Trane had discriminated against her in violation of the ADA. At
the close of evidence, both parties moved for judgment as a matter
of law; the district court denied the motions. In response to the
submitted interrogatories, the jury found, first, that Owens had a
disability but, second, that Owens could not have performed the
essential functions of the job.2 Following the court’s entry of
final judgment, Owens timely appealed.
II
We review a district court’s denial of a motion for judgment
as a matter of law de novo. See Holt v. JTM Indus., Inc., 89 F.3d
1224, 1225 (5th Cir. 1996), cert. denied, 117 S. Ct. 1821, 137 L.
Ed. 2d 1029 (1997). We consider all of the evidence “in the light
and with all reasonable inferences most favorable to the party
opposed to the motion.” Id. (quoting Boeing Co. v. Shipman, 411
F.2d 365, 374 (5th Cir. 1969) (en banc)). A judgment as a matter
of law should not be granted unless “the facts and inferences point
so strongly and overwhelmingly in favor of one party that the court
believes that reasonable men could not arrive at a contrary
2
Because the jury responded in the negative to the second
interrogatory, it did not reach the next question, which concerned
the issue of reasonable accommodation. The parties do not
challenge the finding of disability on appeal.
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verdict.” Leatherwood v. Houston Post Co., 59 F.3d 533, 536 (5th
Cir. 1995) (citing Boeing, 411 F.2d at 374).
To prevail on her ADA claim, Owens must prove that (1) she had
a disability, (2) she was qualified for the job, and (3) an adverse
employment decision was made solely because of her disability. See
Rizzo v. Children’s World Learning Ctrs., Inc., 84 F.2d 758, 763
(5th Cir. 1996). With respect to the second element, Owens has the
burden of proving that she can perform, with or without reasonable
accommodation, all of the essential functions of the employment
position that she holds or desires. See 42 U.S.C. § 12111(8);
Rizzo, 84 F.3d at 763.
Owens does not argue that she could have performed the tasks
required of the post-reduction valve assembly job. Instead, she
argues that Trane’s evidence was directed not to any one job in the
valve assembly but to all of the jobs in valve assembly. In
addition, she repeatedly claims that she could have performed her
old, partial job, suggesting that Trane should have accommodated
her by eliminating the newly required tasks from the job. She
contends that the district court’s denial of her motion for
judgment as a matter of law precluded the jury from considering the
real issue in this case, whether Trane discriminated against her by
refusing to continue the accommodation of her disability.
We hold that the district court did not err in denying Owens’
motion for judgment as a matter of law. Sufficient evidence was
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presented at trial to support the jury’s determination that Owens
could not have performed the essential functions of the job at
issue, i.e., the post-reduction job in valve assembly. Testimony
at trial showed that, pursuant to the September 1995 reduction in
force, Trane reduced the number of jobs in valve assembly and that
the remaining, consolidated positions required the performance of
additional tasks. Owens’ direct supervisor, Thompkins, testified
that before the September 1995 reduction in force, he had the
luxury of allowing Owens to perform part of a job in the valve
assembly room but that after the reduction, workers could no longer
share the one job by doing only certain pieces of it because fewer
workers were available and production was lower. Further trial
testimony showed that the post-reduction jobs in valve assembly
required the performance of tasks such as operating the presses and
a spring-loaded gripper in the valve assembly process, tasks which
Thompkins testified were essential or core duties of a person
working in valve assembly and which all valve assembly workers
after the reduction were able to perform. Finally, the evidence
also showed that these tasks, which required forceful and
repetitive gripping, were inconsistent with Owens’ restrictions in
effect at that time.
Based on the evidence presented at trial, a reasonable jury
therefore could have found that the post-reduction valve assembly
job required the performance of additional, essential tasks and
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that Owens could not have performed these tasks because of her
restrictions. See 42 U.S.C. § 12111 (“[C]onsideration shall be
given to the employer’s judgment as to what functions of a job are
essential . . . .”); 29 C.F.R. § 1630.29(ii) (“The [job] function
may be essential because of the limited number of employees
available among whom the performance of that job function can be
distributed.”). Moreover, we note that Trane was not required to
create))or re-create))for Owens a position excluding these essential
functions. See Barber v. Nabors Drilling U.S.A., Inc., 130 F.3d
702, 709 (5th Cir. 1997) (“[T]he law does not require an employer
to transfer from the disabled employee any of the essential
functions of his job.”). Thus, we reject Owens’ argument that such
continuing accommodation was required. See id. (“We cannot say
that [Owens] can perform the essential functions of the job with
reasonable accommodation, if the only successful accommodation is
for [Owens] not to perform those essential functions.”).
III
In sum, sufficient evidence exists in the record to support
the jury’s verdict that Owens could not have performed the
essential functions of the job she desired. Thus, the district
court did not err in denying Owens’ motion for judgment as a matter
of law, and we accordingly affirm the judgment against her.
AFFIRMED.
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