Nathan A Adams IV is a Partner in Holland & Knight's Tallahassee office

In Sepúlveda-Vargas v. Caribbean Restaurants, LLC, 888 F. 3d 549 (1st Cir. 2018), the court of appeals affirmed summary judgment in favor of the employer on a former assistant manager's action for failure to reasonably accommodate his disability, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, and retaliation in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The plaintiff was attacked at gunpoint, hit over the head and had his car stolen while making a bank deposit on behalf of Caribbean Restaurants. Managers ordinarily rotate among three work shifts, one from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m., another from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and the last from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. The plaintiff asked for a fixed timeslot. The district court determined that working a rotating shift was an essential function of the assistant manager job with Caribbean. Accommodating the plaintiff permanently would have had adverse impacts on all other assistant managers. With respect to his retaliation claim, the district court concluded that none of the actions that the plaintiff argued were adverse were material. These included, for example, that he was scolded by his supervisor for requesting an accommodation from the defendant's human resources department even though the supervisor had already denied it, his direct supervisor accusing him of taking four pills of unnecessary medication, and his supervisor and other employees calling him a "cry baby" on three occasions.

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