Jewell v. Blue Valley Unified School District No. 229

210 F. Supp. 2d 1241, 2002 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13628, 2002 WL 1728624
CourtDistrict Court, D. Kansas
DecidedJuly 5, 2002
DocketCase 01-2350-JWL
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 210 F. Supp. 2d 1241 (Jewell v. Blue Valley Unified School District No. 229) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Kansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Jewell v. Blue Valley Unified School District No. 229, 210 F. Supp. 2d 1241, 2002 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13628, 2002 WL 1728624 (D. Kan. 2002).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM & ORDER

LUNGSTRUM, District Judge.

Plaintiff filed suit against defendant alleging that defendant, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq, failed to accommodate her disability. This matter is presently before the court on defendant’s motion for summary judgment (doc. # 64). As set forth in more detail below, the court grants defendant’s motion and dismisses plaintiffs complaint in its entirety.

I. Facts

The following facts are either uncontro-verted or related in the light most favorable to plaintiff, the nonmoving party. Plaintiff is certified by the Kansas State Board of Education to teach elementary education. In May 1994, defendant hired plaintiff as a kindergarten teacher and she began her teaching duties in the 1995-1996 school year at Harmony Elementary School. In May 1996, at the end of her first year of teaching in the district, plaintiff sustained an on-the-job injury to her left wrist and hand while she was moving large tables in a classroom. She re-injured her left wrist and hand in May 1997, at the end of her second year of teaching at Harmony Elementary School. This subsequent injury occurred when a large group of first graders essentially pinned plaintiff in a doorway as they were moving through it. During her third year at Harmony, plaintiff had surgery on the ulnar nerve in her left arm in October 1997. Following surgery, plaintiff missed numerous days of work and a long-term substitute teacher filled in for plaintiff during her extended absence.

For the school year beginning in 1998, plaintiff requested and received a transfer to Sunset Ridge Elementary School, a brand new school in the district. Just a few weeks into the school year, plaintiff required two back-to-back surgeries (hem-orrhoidectomies) to have an anal fissure removed. The fissure had developed because of severe constipation problems plaintiff had from the narcotics that she was taking for her left-arm injuries. Following these surgeries, plaintiff requested and received six weeks of leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act. When plaintiff returned from leave in October 1998, the district wanted to place plaintiff in a long-term substitute position but plaintiff rejected this assignment because *1243 she believed that it would have been harder on her hand than a regular classroom position. According to plaintiff, at that time it was nearly impossible for her to perform any manual tasks that required the use of her left hand and she was afraid that the substitute teacher position would require her to carry books or papers, grade papers, cover lunchroom or recess duties, or control the behavioral problems of students older than kindergarten age. After rejecting the long-term substitute position, plaintiff accepted a position at the district’s administrative office to help with a reading grant. The job entailed working with reading passages, editing, and writing out questions. According to plaintiff, she was able to perform this office job without any trouble. Plaintiff finished out the remainder of the 1998-99 school year performing light clerical work in the district office.

In April 1999, plaintiff expressed an interest in a kindergarten teaching position for the 1999-2000 school year. Thereafter, plaintiff signed a contract for the following school year and was slated to teach kindergarten at Blue River Elementary School beginning in September 1999. On July 29, 1999, plaintiff notified Jim Payne, the district’s Executive Director of Human Resource Services, that the condition of her left arm had worsened, that she was most likely going to undergo a second surgery on her arm in the upcoming months and that she could not start the school year as a kindergarten teacher. On several occasions during the month of August, plaintiff met with Mr. Payne to discuss possible accommodations for plaintiffs injury. Based on his belief that a position with older children would be more manageable for plaintiff, Mr. Payne offered plaintiff several teaching alternatives, including an eighth grade teaching position at Overland Trail Middle School. Plaintiff accepted this position with the understanding that she would not begin the assignment until after her surgery and recovery period. In the meantime, a long-term substitute teacher was placed in the position.

Throughout August and September 1999, plaintiff had numerous discussions with Mr. Payne and Steve Davis, the principal at Overland Trail Middle School, concerning specific accommodations that the district could provide to enable plaintiff to return to the classroom following her surgery and recovery period. During these discussions, plaintiff expressed to Mssrs. Payne and Davis that she needed help lifting, grading papers, and recording grades in the grade book. 1 Mr. Davis concluded that the school’s custodial staff could assist plaintiff before and after school with respect to any carrying or lifting that plaintiff needed. The custodial staff was also directed to go to plaintiffs classroom over the lunch hour to ascertain whether plaintiff needed any additional assistance. It was also understood that if plaintiff needed the assistance of a custodian during the course of the school day, she could contact the main office and someone in the office would reach a custodian via walkie talkie communication.

In addition to assistance from the custodial staff, Mr. Davis concluded that paraprofessionals in the building could assist *1244 plaintiff during the course of the school day. 2 Finally, Mr. Davis advised plaintiff that the district was attempting to hire an additional full-time paraprofessional and that this individual could provide some assistance to plaintiff on a daily basis. At no time did the district promise to assign a paraprofessional to work exclusively with plaintiff in the classroom and plaintiff acknowledges that the district was not planning on hiring a paraprofessional exclusively for plaintiffs use. Rather, it was agreed only that plaintiff would receive custodial and paraprofessional assistance as often as possible. Mssrs. Davis and Payne thought that these particular accommodations were reasonable and hoped that they would enable plaintiff to do her job.

Plaintiff began the 1999-2000 school year doing light clerical work in the district office. She continued in this position until her second surgery, which took place on September 28, 1999. Following her second surgery, plaintiff requested and received a medical leave of absence until October 25,1999, when she was released to return to light duty work. She spent a few days working in the administrative office at Overland Trail Middle School to permit the substitute teacher for her eighth grade class to finish out the grading period. Beginning November 1, 1999, plaintiff, having agreed to the accommodations described by Mssrs. Payne and Davis concerning custodial and paraprofessional assistance, returned to the classroom to teach eighth grade. She stayed for only a few weeks, leaving her assignment on December 8, 1999 as a result of defendant’s alleged failure to accommodate reasonably her disability.

When plaintiff returned to the classroom, she discovered that she needed a great deal of assistance.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
210 F. Supp. 2d 1241, 2002 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13628, 2002 WL 1728624, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jewell-v-blue-valley-unified-school-district-no-229-ksd-2002.