Tudor v. Whitehall Central School District

132 F.4th 242

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
• Decided: March 25, 2025
• Docket: 23-665
• Status: Published

Opinion

23-665-cv Tudor v. Whitehall Central School District

United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit AUGUST TERM 2024 No. 23-665-cv

ANGEL TUDOR, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

WHITEHALL CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT, Defendant-Appellee.

ARGUED: JANUARY 29, 2025 DECIDED: MARCH 25, 2025

Before: JACOBS, CARNEY, and PÉREZ, Circuit Judges.

Angel Tudor, a teacher, appeals from a judgment of the United States

District Court for the Northern District of New York (Sharpe, J.), entered on

March 21, 2023, granting summary judgment in favor of Whitehall Central

School District on Tudor’s failure-to-accommodate claim brought pursuant to the

Americans with Disabilities Act. We conclude that the district court erred by holding that an employee’s ability to perform the essential functions of her job

without a reasonable accommodation is fatal to her failure-to-accommodate

claim. Accordingly, we vacate the judgment of the district court and remand

for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Vacated and remanded.

KAREN R. KING, Morvillo Abramowitz Grand Iason & Anello PC, New York, NY (with Joseph P. Klemme and Nathaniel Sobel, Morvillo Abramowitz Grand Iason & Anello PC, New York, NY, on the brief), for Plaintiff-Appellant.

SCOTT P. QUESNEL, Girvin & Ferlazzo, P.C., Albany, NY, for Defendant-Appellee.

SYDNEY A. R. FOSTER, U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Appellate Section, Washington, DC (with Karla Gilbride, Jennifer S. Goldstein, Anne Noel Occhialino, and Chelsea C. Sharon, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Office of General Counsel, Washington, DC; and Kristen Clarke, Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, on the brief), for the United States as Amicus Curiae.

2 DENNIS JACOBS, Circuit Judge:

Angel Tudor, a teacher, appeals from a judgment of the United States

District Court for the Northern District of New York (Sharpe, J.), entered on

March 21, 2023, granting summary judgment in favor of Whitehall Central

School District (“Whitehall”) on Tudor’s failure-to-accommodate claim brought

pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Tudor admitted that,

notwithstanding her disability-related pain, she was able to perform the essential

functions of her job “regardless of the alleged denial of her accommodation.”

Tudor v. Whitehall Cent. School Dist., No. 20-cv-1338, 2023 WL 2587946, at *3

(N.D.N.Y. Mar. 21, 2023). The district court therefore held that she was unable

to discharge her burden to prove she was entitled to a reasonable

accommodation. This was error. A straightforward reading of the ADA

confirms that an employee may qualify for a reasonable accommodation even if

she can perform the essential functions of her job without the accommodation.

Ability to perform the essential functions of the job is relevant to a failure-to-

accommodate claim, but it is not dispositive. Accordingly, we vacate the

judgment of the district court and remand for further proceedings consistent

with this opinion.

3 BACKGROUND

Angel Tudor has worked for Whitehall for approximately 20 years, first as

a substitute teacher and then as a high school math teacher.1 Tudor has

suffered for decades from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) related to sexual

harassment and sexual assault by a supervisor in her former workplace.

Tudor’s PTSD symptoms have affected her neurological functioning, interfered

with her ability to perform daily tasks, induced a stutter that impedes

communication, and caused nightmares so severe she has awakened vomiting.

Tudor takes multiple medications to manage her symptoms and has been

admitted for psychiatric care related to her PTSD three times.

In 2008, Tudor’s PTSD symptoms escalated beyond her ability to manage

them with therapy and medication. In consultation with her therapist, she

sought and received an accommodation from Whitehall that allowed her to leave

campus for one fifteen-minute break during each of her morning and afternoon

“prep periods,” when she was not responsible for overseeing students. She

1 On this appeal from a grant of summary judgment, we review the evidence in the light most favorable to Tudor as the non-movant. Doninger v. Niehoff, 642 F.3d 334, 344 (2d Cir. 2011).

4 used these breaks to compose herself away from the workplace, an environment

that tends to trigger her symptoms.

In 2016, following a change in school administration, Whitehall began

prohibiting teachers from leaving school grounds during prep periods. When

Tudor attempted to do so despite the new policy, she was reprimanded for

insubordination. She advised the administration as to her longstanding

accommodation but was told that the documentation that Whitehall had on file

was insufficient to establish her right to a reasonable accommodation. Rather

than provide additional documentation, Tudor took paid sick leave and then

requested leave for the fall semester under the Family and Medical Leave Act

(FMLA). Her doctor identified her medical condition as “PTSD with severe

anxiety and agitation.” App’x 166. During Tudor’s FMLA leave, she “was

unable to teach and had to attend a 5 day a week intensive outpatient

program . . . to get [her] PTSD symptoms and anxiety under control.” App’x

389.

When Tudor returned from FMLA leave in January 2017, Whitehall

granted her one of her requested breaks in the morning, plus a break in the

5 afternoon on days when a school librarian could watch her students. When a

librarian was unavailable, Tudor was unable to take an afternoon break. This

arrangement lasted through the 2017-18 and 2018-19 school years. Whether it

violated the ADA is the subject of a separate lawsuit, in which the district court

ruled that summary judgment was precluded by genuine disputes regarding

Tudor’s disability and the sufficiency of the accommodation that Whitehall

provided. See Tudor v. Whitehall Cent. School Dist., No. 18-cv-826, 2022 WL

2702417 (N.D.N.Y. July 12, 2022).

At issue in the suit on appeal is Tudor’s schedule for the 2019-20 school

year, which included a morning prep period and an afternoon study hall.

During this school year, neither the school librarian nor any other Whitehall

employee was available to cover for Tudor for fifteen minutes during the

afternoon study hall. Tudor nevertheless left school grounds for a break during

her study hall period on 91 of the 100 days of school that year before classes went

remote due to the pandemic. Whether or not Whitehall administrators were

aware that Tudor had thus resorted to self-help, no one from the Whitehall

administration expressly authorized Tudor to take these breaks. And Tudor

6 testified that, because she considered herself to have been violating school policy,

these breaks heightened her anxiety.

Tudor sued, claiming Whitehall’s refusal to guarantee a 15-minute

afternoon break each day during the 2019-20 school year violated the ADA and

New York State law. Tudor later stipulated to dismissing the state-law claims.

During discovery, Tudor acknowledged that, even without additional

accommodation, she was able to “perform the essential functions of her job,”

though “under great duress and harm.” App’x 111.

The district court granted summary judgment to Whitehall. Judge Sharpe

assumed without deciding that Tudor has a qualifying disability and that

Whitehall’s decision to schedule Tudor for study hall was a denial of her

requested accommodation. Judge Sharpe nevertheless found that, because

Tudor “was able to perform the essential functions of her job” without an

accommodation, “no fact finder could determine she has established the third

element of her failure to accommodate claim,” i.e., that “with reasonable

accommodation, plaintiff could perform the essential functions of the job at

issue.” Tudor, 2023 WL 2587946, at *3.

7 Tudor appealed, and this Court directed appointed counsel to brief

“whether Appellant’s ability to perform the essential functions of her job,

without a reasonable accommodation, was fatal to her failure-to-accommodate

claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act.” Dkt. 78.

DISCUSSION

“Summary judgment is proper only when, construing the evidence in the

light most favorable to the non-movant, ‘there is no genuine dispute as to any

material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.’”

Doninger v. Niehoff, 642 F.3d 334, 344 (2d Cir. 2011) (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a)).

We review grants of summary judgment de novo. Elliott v. Cartagena, 84 F.4th

481, 495 (2d Cir. 2023).

The ADA provides that “[n]o covered entity shall discriminate against a

qualified individual on the basis of disability in regard to . . . [the] terms,

conditions, and privileges of employment.” 42 U.S.C. § 12112(a); see also id.

§ 12111(8) (defining “qualified individual” in relevant part as “an individual

who, with or without reasonable accommodation, can perform the essential functions

of the employment position that such individual holds or desires” (emphasis

added)). “To establish a prima facie case [for failure to accommodate] under the

8 ADA, a plaintiff must show by a preponderance of the evidence that: (1) his

employer is subject to the ADA; (2) he was disabled within the meaning of the

ADA; (3) he was otherwise qualified to perform the essential functions of his job,

with or without reasonable accommodation; and (4) . . . his employer refused to make

a reasonable accommodation.” Woolf v. Strada, 949 F.3d 89, 93 (2d Cir. 2020)

(per curiam) (emphasis added). In other cases, we have articulated the third

element as “with reasonable accommodation, plaintiff could perform the

essential functions of the job at issue.” Natofsky v. City of New York, 921 F.3d 337,

352 (2d Cir. 2019) (quoting McBride v. BIC Consumer Prods. Mfg. Co., 583 F.3d 92,

97 (2d Cir. 2009)). The district court, relying on this wording, inferred that an

employee who can perform the essential functions of the job without an

accommodation cannot, as a matter of law, sustain a claim for failure to

accommodate. This inference, however, cannot be squared with the ADA’s

plain text.

“When interpreting a statutory provision, we start with the text.” Salazar

v. Nat’l Basketball Ass’n, 118 F.4th 533, 546 (2d Cir. 2024). Prohibited

discrimination under the ADA includes “not making reasonable

accommodations to the known physical or mental limitations of an otherwise

9 qualified individual with a disability who is an . . . employee,” unless “the

accommodation would impose an undue hardship” on the employer. 42 U.S.C.

§ 12112(b)(5)(A). The ADA in turn defines a “qualified individual” as “an

individual who, with or without reasonable accommodation, can perform the

essential functions of the employment position that such individual holds or

desires.” Id. § 12111(8) (emphasis added); see also Borkowski v. Valley Cent. School

Dist., 63 F.3d 131, 135 (2d Cir. 1995) (holding, in the context of the analog

Rehabilitation Act, that “an individual is otherwise qualified for a job if she is

able to perform the essential functions of that job, either with or without a

reasonable accommodation” (emphasis added)). And a “reasonable

accommodation” is defined to include, inter alia, “job restructuring [or] part-time

or modified work schedules.” 42 U.S.C. § 12111(9).

Putting these provisions together, an employer must, absent undue

hardship, offer a reasonable accommodation--such as a modified work schedule-

-to an employee with a disability if that employee is capable of performing the

essential functions of her job with or without the accommodation. Under a

straightforward reading of the phrase “with or without,” the fact that an

employee can perform her job responsibilities without a reasonable

10 accommodation does not mean that she must: she may be a “qualified

individual” entitled to reasonable accommodation even if she can perform the

essential functions of her job without one.

In concluding that “with or without” means with or without, we break no

new ground. Several of our sister circuits have considered whether the ability

to perform the essential functions of a job without an accommodation is fatal to

an employee’s ADA or Rehabilitation Act failure-to-accommodate claim, and all

have reached the same conclusion. 2 We join this consensus: an employee with a

2 See Bell v. O’Reilly Auto Enters., LLC, 972 F.3d 21, 24 (1st Cir. 2020) (“An employee who can, with some difficulty, perform the essential functions of his job without accommodation remains eligible to request and receive a reasonable accommodation.”); Hill v. Assocs. for Renewal in Educ., Inc., 897 F.3d 232, 239 (D.C. Cir. 2018) (“ARE’s assertion that Hill did not need the accommodation . . . because he could perform the essential functions of his job without accommodation, ‘but not without pain,’ is unavailing.” (citation omitted)); Feist v. Louisiana, 730 F.3d 450, 453 (5th Cir. 2013) (“The text thus gives no indication that an accommodation must facilitate the essential functions of one’s position.”); Sanchez v. Vilsack, 695 F.3d 1174, 1182 (10th Cir. 2012) (accommodation “is not per se unreasonable, even if an employee is able to perform the essential functions of her job without it”); Buckingham v. United States, 998 F.2d 735, 740 (9th Cir. 1993) (“[E]mployers are not relieved of their duty to accommodate when employees are already able to perform the essential functions of the job.”); see also Beasley v. O’Reilly Auto Parts, 69 F.4th 744, 757 (11th Cir. 2023) (offering dicta that the “terms, conditions, and privileges of employment are more than just the essential functions of a job”); Gleed v. AT&T Mobility Servs., LLC, 613 F. App’x 535, 538 (6th Cir. 2015) (rejecting, in an unpublished opinion, the argument that plaintiff was

11 disability is qualified to receive a reasonable accommodation under the ADA

even if she can perform the essential job functions without one. The text of the

ADA is unambiguous and affords no other reasonable interpretation.

This textual reading, which is enough to resolve this appeal, is consistent

with our case law: “As a remedial statute, the ADA must be broadly construed to

effectuate its purpose of providing a clear and comprehensive national mandate

for the elimination of discrimination against individuals with disabilities.” Noel

v. N.Y.C. Taxi & Limousine Comm’n, 687 F.3d 63, 68 (2d Cir. 2012) (internal

quotation marks and citation omitted). To say that an accommodation must be

strictly necessary to be reasonable would run counter to this purpose; if Congress

had wanted employers to make only necessary accommodations, rather than

reasonable ones, it could have said so. But Congress did not require “necessary

accommodations”; the ADA plainly directs employers to make “reasonable

accommodations.” 42 U.S.C. § 12112(b)(5)(A). Generally speaking, “[p]er se

ineligible for any accommodation because he “was physically capable of doing his job--no matter the pain or risk to his health”). The Eighth Circuit likewise declined to adopt the per se rule “that the ADA requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations only when necessary to enable employees to perform the essential functions of their jobs.” Hopman v. Union Pac. R.R., 68 F.4th 394, 402 (8th Cir. 2023) (emphasis added).

12 rules are unreliable in the disability context.” Noll v. IBM Corp., 787 F.3d 89, 96

(2d Cir. 2015). Such is the case here, where the “reasonableness of an

employer’s accommodation is a ‘fact-specific’ question.” Id. at 94 (quoting

Wernick v. Fed. Rsrv. Bank of N.Y., 91 F.3d 379, 385 (2d Cir. 1996)). See also

Hopman v. Union Pac. R.R., 68 F.4th 394, 401-02 (8th Cir. 2023) (failure-to-

accommodate claims require a “fact- and context-specific” inquiry); EEOC v.

Charter Commc’ns, LLC, 75 F.4th 729, 739-40 (7th Cir. 2023) (“[D]eciding whether a

work-schedule accommodation of a disability . . . is reasonable depends on a

highly fact-specific inquiry that considers the needs of both employer and

employee.”).

We may share in the blame for the district court’s error here. In the past,

we have articulated the third prong of a failure-to-accommodate claim variously:

“he was otherwise qualified to perform the essential functions of his job, with or

without reasonable accommodation”; and “with reasonable accommodation, plaintiff

could perform the essential functions of the job at issue.” Compare Woolf, 949

F.3d at 93, with Natofsky, 921 F.3d at 352. These formulations are compatible: a

plaintiff who can perform the essential functions of the job without an

accommodation can certainly perform those essential functions with one. As the

13 Government explains, “requiring a plaintiff to show that they are able to perform

the essential functions of the job with a reasonable accommodation does not

compel the inverse, i.e., requiring a plaintiff to show that they are unable to

perform the essential functions of the job without a reasonable accommodation.”

Brief of the United States as Amicus Curiae 15 (emphasis in original). An

employee may qualify for an accommodation even if it is not strictly necessary to

her performance of the essential functions of the job.

We do not consider the extent to which the necessity of an accommodation

to the performance of essential job functions is relevant to any particular failure-

to-accommodate claim; we hold only that the necessity of the accommodation is

not dispositive. The ADA “does not require the perfect elimination of all

disadvantage that may flow from the disability.” Fink v. N.Y.C. Dep’t of Pers., 53

F.3d 565, 567 (2d Cir. 1995). But employees who can work without

accommodation are included within the category of individuals “qualified” for

reasonable accommodations, 42 U.S.C. § 12111(8). In at least some

circumstances, the ADA requires an employer to offer accommodations that

mitigate (if not necessarily eliminate) an employee’s disability-related pain. See

Hill, 897 F.3d at 239 (“A reasonable jury could conclude that forcing Hill to work

14 with pain when that pain could be alleviated by his requested accommodation

violates the ADA.”).

Whitehall is not foreclosed from raising other defenses on remand. In

Tudor’s first case against Whitehall, the district court found genuine disputes on

such issues as whether Tudor has a qualifying disability and what

accommodation would be reasonable. See Tudor, 2022 WL 2702417, at *4.

Those arguments are not foreclosed here. Whitehall also might demonstrate

that the requested accommodation would impose on it an undue hardship. At

the same time, Tudor’s long history of receiving her requested accommodation

and Whitehall’s evolving policies indicate that Tudor’s requested

accommodation may have been reasonable, notwithstanding that she performed

her essential job functions without it. We leave these issues to the district court

to address in the first instance. We hold only that accommodations that are not

strictly necessary for an employee’s performance of essential job functions may

still be reasonable and therefore required by the ADA.

15 CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we VACATE the judgment of the district court

and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Appellant’s pro se motions to appeal, Dkt. 20 & 41, are DENIED as moot.