Court Finds that Company Did Not Discriminate Against Injured Worker Returning from Comp Injury When It Fired Him for Lack of Available Work

Michael Sluga worked for Metamora Telephone Company as an Outside Plant Supervisor.  On July 27, 2011 he slipped on a trailer while at work and fell two feet to the ground, tearing his rotator cuff.  He tried to work with the injury but eventually in December he asked for a six month leave of absence to obtain surgery to the shoulder and then physical rehabilitation after surgery.  His surgery took place on February 15, 2012 in Chicago, Illinois, and he was placed on FMLA leave from February 15, 2012 to May 16, 2012.

Metamora promoted another employee, Dale Matson, to Outside Work Supervisor on May 20, 2012 after Sluga’s FMLA leave expired.  Matson had previously been under Sluga’s supervision, but he had been doing Sluga’s job while Sluga was on leave. Metamora also hired Don Adams on August 6, 2012 to work on the outside crew doing line installation, filling Matson’s position.

Sluga filed a workers’ compensation claim for his shoulder and settled it.  On July 27, 2012, the treating doctor sent a report to the workers’ compensation carrier stating that he would give an opinion on Sluga’s ability to return to work in four weeks.  Ultimately, Sluga’s doctor released him to work on August 30, 2012 with certain restrictions.  At that point Metamora terminated Sluga’s employment because the company had no open jobs for him to perform.

Sluga sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act, alleging that he was discriminated against on the basis of disability for failure to make reasonable accommodations.  Metamora countered that Sluga never really asked for any accommodation.  The Court said, “Even if Plaintiff had preserved his reasonable accommodation claim, it would fail based on the evidence presented.  When an employee seeks a reassignment to a vacant position as a reasonable accommodation, as Plaintiff does here, it is the employee’s burden to show that another position for which they are qualified existed.”  The Court added that Sluga never proved that there was an available job for him to perform.

Sluga also argued that the real reason that the company terminated him was that it did not want someone  with a disability to return to work. The Court disagreed, noting that Sluga never offered evidence that the company did not honestly believe that no positions were available in August 2012. The Court examined depositions and company affidavits given in the case by managers of Metamora and concluded that the company consistently explained that there just was no job available for Sluga when he was cleared to return to work.  The Court also affirmed the principle that a company does not have to bump one employee to accommodate another employee.

This case can be found at Sluga v. Metamora Tel. Co., 2015 AD Cases 181739 (C.D. Illinois April 27, 2015).