Chicago Prevails in Disability Discrimination Suit

A Chicago firefighter-paramedic who suffered a stroke, and was placed in a non-operational procurement position at O’Hare airport, has lost his lawsuit alleging that the city’s failure to promote him to lieutenant violated the Americans With Disabilities Act. Michael Jezior filed suit after his request for an accommodation to accept a promotion while remaining at the airport was declined.

The basic facts and the court’s reasoning as explained in the decision are as follows:

• In 2013, Plaintiff suffered a stroke, which left him unable to move his left hand, left arm and left leg. With rehabilitation, he regained some motion in his left arm and hand, but his mobility remains limited. He walks with a leg brace and uses a cane.
• The job of a firefighter is physically demanding, and Plaintiff admits that, even after rehabilitation, he could not—and cannot, to this day—meet the job’s physical requirements or perform the essential job functions of a firefighter without accommodation.
• On June 25, 2014, he submitted a request for a reasonable accommodation, and his supervisor recommended that he be assigned to a position at O’Hare airport, where he could work in a non-firefighting role performing procurement and logistics tasks.
• Plaintiff accepted this assignment, and he has worked at the airport ever since.
• In March 2021, Plaintiff learned that CFD had reached his number on the eligibility list, meaning he would have the opportunity to accept a promotion to the rank of Lieutenant.
• He hoped to accept the promotion while continuing to work in his procurement role at the airport, an arrangement that he believed some of his CFD superiors approved of.
• Shortly afterward, on March 16, 2021, Plaintiff met with John Gies, the District Chief of Airport Operations; Michael Butkus, a union representative; and [Deputy Fire Commissioner Brian] Helmold.
• Helmold informed Plaintiff that he could either (a) waive the promotion and continue to work at the airport, or (b) accept it, and the City would search for a position he could perform with his physical restrictions.
• Helmold did not identify any particular position Plaintiff might be offered, and Plaintiff worried that, if he was assigned a position that he turned out to be unable to perform, he could be forced into retirement.
• Helmold told plaintiff that, if he accepted the promotion, he might be placed in a non-firefighting position in the Fire Protection Bureau (“FPB”), if one was available. The FPB inspects buildings to ensure compliance with the City’s fire code.
• Plaintiff and Butkus responded that Plaintiff could not accept a position at the FPB because he could not climb stairs.
• [Fire Commissioner] Ford and Helmold knew of CFD employees needing accommodations who had been assigned to the FPB, but Helmold did not know for certain that there was a job at the FPB that Plaintiff could perform at that time.
• Plaintiff does not dispute that he could not perform the essential functions of his job; due to the lasting effects of his stroke, he was not physically capable of performing firefighting duties. Therefore, he required a “reasonable accommodation” to continue working for CFD.
• Plaintiff [contends] that the City frequently borrowed from other budget lines to fund promotions of firefighters to roles that it had not specifically budgeted for, and it could have done that for Plaintiff to allow him to work at the airport in procurement as a Lieutenant.
• Additionally, Plaintiff argues [the city was] required to do more to find a way to accommodate him at the Lieutenant level.
• Based on the undisputed facts, a reasonable juror could not conclude that the ADA required the City to do these things under the circumstances.
• Here, Plaintiff had been working with an accommodation for years, and when his number came up on the promotion eligibility list, Defendant told him that he could keep his current accommodation at his current rank.
• If he wanted to accept the promotion to Lieutenant, he would have to find a position he would be medically cleared to perform.
• The parties discussed the possibility of such a job in the FPB, where there were non-operational Lieutenant positions, one of which became available during the parties’ negotiations.
• In his response brief, Plaintiff faults Defendant … for not knowing, at the time of the discussions between the parties, of a position in the FPB that Plaintiff could definitely handle, even with his physical limitations.
• This is puzzling because Plaintiff admits that he was uninterested in learning about positions in the FPB.
• Therefore, it is clear from the undisputed facts that Plaintiff wanted to be promoted in place, i.e., he wanted to remain in his current position at the airport and be promoted to Lieutenant, without any change in job duties, and he was not interested in exploring other options.
• With regard to any of these other options, there is no genuine factual dispute that it was Plaintiff, not Defendant, who broke off the interactive process.
• As for promotion in place, the Court fails to see why the law required it under the circumstances of this case.
• Defendant’s motion for summary judgment is granted. Civil case terminated.

Here is a copy of the decision: