Nigro v. Sears, Roebuck and Co., No. 12-57262 (9th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff filed suit against his former employer, Sears, alleging three disability discrimination claims under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), Cal. Gov't Code 12940(a). On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Sears. The court concluded that there are genuine issues of material fact regarding whether Sears terminated plaintiff because of his disability; that Sears declined to accommodate his disability; and that Sears did not engage in an interactive process to determine possible accommodation for his disability. In this case, plaintiff presented several state law claims that deserved trial and it should not take a whole lot of evidence to establish a genuine issue of material fact in a disability discrimination case, at least where the fact issue on discrimination is genuine and the disability would not preclude gainful employment of a person working with accommodation. Moreover, it is entirely besides the point that some of plaintiff's evidence was self-serving, as it will often be the case in a discrimination case that an employee has something to say about what company representatives said to him or her. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded.
Court Description: Disability Discrimination. The panel reversed the district court’s summary judgment in favor of Sears, Roebuck and Co. in a former employee’s diversity action alleging disability discrimination claims under California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act. The panel held that the employee presented triable claims under FEHA: (1) that Sears discriminated against the employee because of his disability; (2) that Sears declined to accommodate the employee’s disability; and (3) that Sears did not engage in an interactive process to determine possible accommodation for the employee’s disability. The panel noted that it was beside the point that some of the employee’s evidence was self-serving because such testimony was admissible, though absent corroboration, it may have limited weight by the trier of fact at trial. The panel remanded for further proceedings.
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on April 10, 2015.
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