A terminated City of Indianapolis employee who suffers from multiple sclerosis can pursue her discrimination and retaliation claims against the city, an appellate court said Tuesday in reversing a lower court ruling.

However, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago upheld the lower court's dismissal of the reasonable accommodation claims brought by the employee in its ruling in Nancie J. Cloe v. City of Indianapolis.

Ms. Cloe had started working as an unsafe buildings/nuisance abatement project manager for Indianapolis' Department of Metropolitan Development in May 2007, which required significant field work. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in March 2008, and her job became “almost entirely desk-bound” as a result of her doctor's restrictions, according to the ruling.

In January 2009, Ms. Cloe was given a new supervisor and “things quickly went downhill,” the ruling states. Incidents described in the lawsuit include problems involving a building's demolition, where Ms. Cloe had not ordered an emergency demolition on the building because she did not think it was her job, and when it was later scheduled, it ended up costing the city several hundred dollars in overtime for the workers who demolished the building.

The incident led to Ms. Cloe being disciplined a month later in May 2009. She was terminated in June 2009.

%%BREAK%%

Ms. Cloe filed suit against the city in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis, charging it with failure to accommodate her disability, discrimination against her because of her disability, and retaliation against her for requesting accommodations for her disability.

In reversing the U.S. District Court's ruling, the 7th Circuit's three-judge panel said, “Both sides agree that Cloe engaged in protected activity (requesting accommodations for her disability) and that she suffered an adverse employment action (termination). The question, then, is whether a reasonable jury could infer a causal link between the two. We think so.”

The court said it is reasonable to infer that the discipline imposed by Ms. Cloe's supervisor in connection with the building demolition “played a significant part in her termination.” That discipline "was fishy, if Cloe's evidence is to be believed,” said the court. “To begin, there is at least some evidence that the discipline was unwarranted … Moreover, there is evidence that the discipline may have been motivated by hostility towards Cloe's disability.”

The court upheld, however, the lower court's dismissal of her reasonable accommodation claim. Among the issues discussed is that Ms. Cloe was given two different parking spaces before being given a third one that was satisfactory. “Once the city found out that its proposed accommodations were insufficient, it acted with reasonable speed to come up with new ones,” said the ruling.

The case was remanded for further proceedings.