In Jaiyeola v. District
of Columbia, 40 A.3d 356 (D.C. 2012), the Court found that denial of a
renewed request for reinstatement which follows the denial of such a request
can constitute a separate act of discrimination.
The district court had originally found plaintiff’s complaint
to be untimely on the basis that the discrimination against plaintiff occurred
when plaintiff’s first request for reinstatement in 2001 was denied. In so holding, the lower court ruled that
plaintiff’s subsequent requests for reinstatement, one of which was made in
2003, within the limitations period, were “[m]ere requests to reconsider…[and]
cannot extend the limitations periods applicable to the civil rights
laws.”
On appeal, the Court of Appeals found that plaintiff’s 2003
request was more than a mere request to reconsider, explaining:
When an employee, whose employer has denied his initial request for a disability accommodation, makes a subsequent request for “a new accommodation” (or for reinstatement without previously requested accommodation on the ground that he is impaired no longer), the denial of that new request can give rise to a fresh act of discrimination, because “the denial of a new request, made in light of changed circumstances, [will] not be time-barred.”
The
Court went on to note that, plaintiff supported his renewed request for
reinstatement with additional evidence informing his employer that his
condition had improved and that he therefore suffered fewer work
restrictions. The Court determined that
this new evidence “permitted [plaintiff] to argue that [employer’s] failure to
reinstate him despite those changed circumstances amounted to fresh acts of
disability discrimination that are not time-barred.”
Please be sure to visit our website at http://RobertBFitzpatrick.com
Posts
