United States Court of Appeals
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
Argued November 5, 2009 Decided January 5, 2010
No. 09-7013
TRINA STEWART,
APPELLANT
v.
ST. ELIZABETHS HOSPITAL AND DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
DEPARTMENT OF MENTAL HEALTH,
APPELLEES
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Columbia
(No. 1:04-cv-01444)
Lisa Alexis Jones argued the cause and filed the briefs for
appellant.
Holly M. Johnson, Assistant Attorney General, Office of
the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, argued the
cause for appellees. Peter J. Nickles, Attorney General, Todd
S. Kim, Solicitor General, and Donna M. Murasky, Deputy
Solicitor General of the District of Columbia, were with her
on the briefs.
Before: TATEL and KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judges, and
RANDOLPH, Senior Circuit Judge.
2
Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge
KAVANAUGH.
KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judge: Trina Stewart worked for
about 20 years as a housekeeping aide at St. Elizabeths*
Hospital in Washington, D.C. In January 2002, St. Elizabeths
transferred Stewart to a part of the hospital known as the John
Howard Pavilion, a maximum-security facility that houses
mentally ill patients who have been charged with or convicted
of crimes. Stewart alleges that the stress of working there
caused her mental health to deteriorate to the point that she
became disabled for purposes of the Rehabilitation Act.
Stewart contends, moreover, that St. Elizabeths failed to
accommodate her disability by refusing her request for a
transfer to a job site outside the John Howard Pavilion.
Stewart’s claim fails, however, because her superiors did not
have notice of any mental disability or requested
accommodation until October 2002, at which time they acted
promptly and appropriately to assist her. We therefore affirm.
I
Trina Stewart worked as a housekeeping aide at St.
Elizabeths Hospital. In January 2002, St. Elizabeths assigned
Stewart to work at its John Howard Pavilion. The John
Howard Pavilion is a maximum-security facility that houses
pretrial defendants awaiting psychiatric screening, convicted
persons who become mentally ill while incarcerated, and
persons found not guilty by reason of insanity.
*
St. Elizabeths Hospital does not have an apostrophe before
the “s.”
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Stewart did not want to work at the John Howard
Pavilion and complained to both the Director of
Housekeeping and her former supervisor about her new
assignment. She did not base her objection on any claimed
disability.
A few months after her transfer to the John Howard
Pavilion, a patient exposed himself to Stewart. After the
incident, Stewart says she became fearful and panicky and
that her “heart would race each day working in that very
restrictive place” with dangerous criminals. J.A. 149.
In a separate later incident, one of Stewart’s supervisors
found her “crying, shaking, [and] talking to herself.” Id. at
146. Stewart explained to her supervisors that she was upset
because other employees were spreading personal rumors
about her. After this incident, Stewart’s supervisors became
concerned about her, but they attributed her behavior in part
to stress as a result of the 2002 deaths of her uncle and sister.
In early October 2002, Stewart called the hospital’s
Facility Administrator, Jasper Burnett, to request a transfer
from the John Howard Pavilion because she didn’t “feel that
well.” Id. at 269. Burnett made an appointment to meet with
Stewart on October 15th and, pursuant to federal regulations,
asked her to provide medical documentation of any disability.
Between the call and the appointment, Stewart provided
Burnett’s secretary with an incident report regarding the
patient who had exposed himself to her. She did not provide
medical documentation of any disability. At the October 15th
meeting, Stewart informed Burnett about the distress she was
experiencing and requested a transfer from the John Howard
Pavilion. Burnett told her that he would help her once she
completed the requisite paperwork. That afternoon, Stewart
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left work early and attempted suicide. She never returned to
work at St. Elizabeths.
Stewart later brought suit against St. Elizabeths for
failure to accommodate her disability under section 504 of the
Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. § 794. With respect to
Stewart’s claim that the hospital had failed to accommodate
her disability before October 2002, the District Court granted
summary judgment to the hospital. The District Court
concluded that Stewart had not afforded her superiors notice
of her alleged mental disability before October 2002.
With respect to Stewart’s claim that Burnett had denied
her request for accommodation in October 2002, Stewart’s
case went to trial. After she had presented her evidence, St.
Elizabeths moved for judgment as a matter of law. The
District Court granted the motion, holding that Stewart had
not presented evidence from which a reasonable jury could
conclude that Burnett had denied her request either explicitly
or through undue delay.
Stewart appeals from both the grant of summary
judgment and the grant of judgment as a matter of law. Our
review is de novo, and in this posture we view the evidence in
the light most favorable to Stewart, the non-moving party in
the District Court.
II
The Rehabilitation Act requires federal employers to
make “reasonable accommodations to the known physical or
mental limitations of an otherwise qualified individual with a
disability.” 42 U.S.C. § 12112(b)(5)(A) (incorporated into the
Rehabilitation Act by 29 U.S.C. § 791(g)). To prevail on a
5
claim for denial of reasonable accommodation, Stewart had to
produce sufficient evidence (a) that she was disabled for
purposes of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 794; (b) that
St. Elizabeths had notice of her disability, see Crandall v.
Paralyzed Veterans of Am., 146 F.3d 894, 896-97 (D.C. Cir.
1998); and (c) that St. Elizabeths denied her request for a
reasonable accommodation of her disability, see Mitchell v.
Washingtonville Cent. Sch. Dist., 190 F.3d 1, 6 (2d Cir. 1999).
Stewart challenges both St. Elizabeths’ pre-October 2002
actions and its October 2002 actions. We consider each in
turn.
A
With respect to Stewart’s claim that she did not receive
an accommodation before October 2002, Stewart failed to
produce sufficient evidence that she notified St. Elizabeths of
her disability, as is required to support a Rehabilitation Act
claim.
Stewart did not produce sufficient evidence that she
notified St. Elizabeths of her disability before October 2002.
Indeed, Stewart acknowledges that she did not inform any of
her supervisors of her disability before then. See Oral Arg. Tr.
at 5. Nor did her supervisors receive constructive notice:
Stewart’s behavior was not so obviously a manifestation “of
an underlying disability that it would be reasonable to infer
that an employer actually knew of the disability.” Crandall,
146 F.3d at 898 (quoting Hedberg v. Ind. Bell Tel. Co., 47
F.3d 928, 934 (7th Cir. 1995)). Although Stewart was visibly
upset after a patient exposed himself to her, such a reaction
alone was not indicative of mental illness. And after the later
incident where she was found crying and shaking, Stewart
told her supervisor that her distress stemmed from a personal
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matter. J.A. 146. Stewart’s supervisors could not be expected
to attribute those reactions to a mental illness that qualified as
a disability. Indeed, most other signs about Stewart’s work
and behavior would have led her supervisors to the opposite
conclusion: Stewart reasonably explained why she was upset
after both incidents, she completed her work assignments in a
satisfactory manner, her attendance record was excellent, and
she took leave only for typical personal and family issues –
car trouble, babysitting difficulties, deaths in her family, her
children’s illnesses, and her own minor illnesses. Def.’s
Statement of Material Facts Not in Dispute ¶¶ 12-13, J.A. 17-
18.
In sum, with respect to her claim based on St. Elizabeths’
pre-October 2002 actions, Stewart did not produce sufficient
evidence that she notified St. Elizabeths of her disability.
Therefore, the District Court properly granted summary
judgment to St. Elizabeths with respect to St. Elizabeths’ pre-
October 2002 actions.
B
Stewart separately claims that St. Elizabeths denied her
October 2002 request for an accommodation. To create an
issue for the jury with respect to this request, Stewart was
required to produce sufficient evidence that, after her request,
St. Elizabeths refused to make an accommodation. See
Mitchell, 190 F.3d at 6; Scarborough v. Natsios, 190 F. Supp.
2d 5, 19 (D.D.C. 2002).
As the District Court correctly concluded, a reasonable
jury could not have found that St. Elizabeths – in particular,
Facility Administrator Jasper Burnett – denied Stewart’s
request for an accommodation. Burnett met promptly with
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Stewart after she asked him to do so. At their meeting,
Burnett did not deny an accommodation to Stewart. On the
contrary, Burnett said he would try to assist Stewart as soon
as she submitted the necessary paperwork. Nothing in the
evidence presented suggests that Burnett acted in anything but
an entirely appropriate manner in dealing with Stewart’s
situation. See 29 C.F.R. pt. 1630 app. § 1630.9 (“When the
need for an accommodation is not obvious, an employer,
before providing a reasonable accommodation, may require
that the individual with a disability provide documentation of
the need for accommodation.”); cf. Beck v. Univ. of Wis. Bd.
of Regents, 75 F.3d 1130, 1136 (7th Cir. 1996) (when the
parties are “missing information . . . that can only be provided
by one of the parties, . . . the party withholding the
information may be found to have obstructed the process”);
Templeton v. Neodata Servs., Inc., 162 F.3d 617, 619 (10th
Cir. 1998) (when employee fails to provide medical
information, claim for denial of accommodation cannot go
forward).
***
We affirm the District Court’s summary judgment and
judgment as a matter of law in favor of St. Elizabeths
Hospital.
So ordered.