Summary
This memorandum addresses the Attorney General’s motion for summary judgment in Raul Nazario’s federal employment action concerning alleged violations of the Rehabilitation Act and Title VII. The court finds genuine disputes of material fact regarding Nazario’s alleged knee disability, reasonable accommodation, disparate treatment, and retaliation claims, and denies summary judgment on those claims. The opinion also discusses unlawful interference and retaliatory hostile work environment claims under the Rehabilitation Act, but the provided text ends before the court’s resolution of those claims.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether summary judgment was proper on Nazario's Rehabilitation Act failure-to-accommodate claim.
- Whether summary judgment was proper on Nazario's Rehabilitation Act disparate-treatment claim.
- Whether Nazario established a causal connection and evidence of pretext sufficient to proceed on his Rehabilitation Act retaliation claim based on his accommodation requests.
- Whether Nazario's Rehabilitation Act retaliation claim based on his earlier EEO complaint could survive summary judgment.
- Whether Nazario abandoned his Rehabilitation Act interference and retaliatory-hostile-work-environment claims by failing to address them in opposition to summary judgment.
- Whether Nazario abandoned his Title VII disparate-treatment, retaliation, and retaliatory-hostile-work-environment claims by failing to address them in opposition to summary judgment.
Holdings
- Summary judgment was denied because the record created genuine disputes of material fact as to whether Nazario had a disability and whether the defendant made a good-faith effort to accommodate him.
- Summary judgment was denied because the disability issue remained genuinely disputed, and a reasonable factfinder could determine that Nazario's knee condition constituted a disability under the Rehabilitation Act.
- Summary judgment was denied because the timing of Nazario's accommodation requests and subsequent reassignment, together with additional evidence, could establish causation and create a genuine dispute as to whether the employer's stated safety rationale was pretextual.
- Summary judgment was granted because the gap of at least approximately one year between the EEO activity and the challenged actions, without additional evidence, was insufficient to establish causation.
- Summary judgment was granted because Nazario failed to respond substantively to the defendant's arguments, and the court deemed the claims abandoned.
- Summary judgment was granted on all remaining Title VII claims because Nazario failed to address or even acknowledge those claims in his opposition brief, thereby abandoning them.
Key quotations
“The defendant’s motion for summary judgment will be denied as to this claim.”
“Therefore, we find that the plaintiff has abandoned them.”
“For the foregoing reasons, the defendant’s motion for summary judgment will be granted in part and denied in part.”
Factual background
Nazario, a recreational specialist at FCI Schuylkill, developed severe right-knee pain in January 2020 and submitted medical documentation diagnosing osteoarthritis and restricting running, squatting, and kneeling. After communications concerning his return to work and requested restrictions, he was placed on administrative leave, reassigned to a computer laboratory, and told the reassignment related to an investigation concerning alleged contraband. Nazario also alleged race- and national-origin-related mistreatment, heightened scrutiny, and retaliation connected to accommodation requests and an EEO complaint. The court found evidence sufficient to create factual disputes concerning his disability, the employer's good-faith accommodation efforts, retaliation for accommodation requests, and pretext, but found that several other claims were abandoned or lacked a sufficient causal connection.
Procedural history
Nazario initiated the action in September 2022, asserting nine claims under the Rehabilitation Act, Title VII, and the Constitution against the Attorney General and a federal correctional-institution warden. The court previously dismissed the warden and Counts VIII and IX, as well as part of a Title VII disparate-treatment claim. On the remaining claims, the Attorney General moved for summary judgment. The court granted the motion in part and denied it in part.