A former correctional officer lost her workplace injury case in a precedent-setting appellate ruling.
The Fourth District Court of Appeal found that Maria Miller had not proved the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation failed to engage in the interactive process to find accommodation—partly because there was no real accommodation they could provide for her workplace injury.
The appellate ruling laid out the facts:
Miller worked at the California Institution for Women in Chino since 2008. In 2016, she fell while working off site to recruit officers. She was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, and suffered pain in her back, knee, ankle and shoulder. She admitted in a deposition that her physical injury prevented her from doing the essential work of a correctional officer. In 2018, the CDCR placed her on an unpaid leave of absence after her wage replacement benefits were exhausted. Miller said she would accept either retirement disability, an alternative job, or a temporary work assignment. In 2019, the department offered to medically demote Miller to the position of personnel specialist to accommodate her work restrictions. She declined the position, and told the department that her treating psychologist determined she could not work while she was treating a previously undisclosed mental health condition.
Miller filed suit Nov. 23, 2020, alleging disability discrimination, failure to accommodate, failure to engage in the interactive process, failure to prevent discrimination, and retaliation. Riverside Superior Judge Harold Hopp granted summary judgment in favor of the CDCR on Feb. 24, 2023. She appealed.
The Court of Appeal found the CDCR met its burden to prove that Miller could not return as a correctional officer. Miller’s appeal, which alleged that the CDCR did not engage in the interactive process, did not disprove their claim, the ruling said.
“Notably, even if we assumed that CDCR failed to engage in the interactive process and failed to offer a reasonable accommodation, this would not compel the conclusion that CDCR is liable for disability discrimination,” the ruling said.
“Instead, an employer’s failure to engage in the interactive process and failure to provide a reasonable accommodation represent independent causes of action subject to different elements of proof,” the ruling continued.
The ruling also found that disability retirement, which Miller argued she was entitled to, is not an accommodation for a disability.
“Under FEHA (Fair Employment and Housing Act), ‘reasonable accommodation’ means ‘a modification or adjustment to the workplace that enables the employee to perform the essential functions of the job held or desired,’” the ruling said.
“In contrast, the purpose of a disability retirement under PERS (California Public Employees’ Retirement System) is not to facilitate a disabled employee’s eventual return to work,” the ruling continued.
The Court of Appeal also found that the CDCR could not have failed to engage in the interactive process, since there was no reasonable accommodation for her following her inability to work as a correctional officer.
“However, regardless of how deficient an employer’s participation in the interactive process may be ‘unless, after litigation with full discovery, (an employee) identifies a reasonable accommodation that was objectively available during the interactive process, he has suffered no remedial injury from any violation of (anti-discrimination law),’” the ruling said, quoting the 2009 case Scotch v. Art Institute of California.
Case information
Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division Two, Justice Richard Fields wrote the opinion, joined by Presiding Justice Manuel Ramirez and Justice Douglas Miller.
David Kaufman argued for Miller.
Deputy Attorneys General Celine Cooper and Vanessa Mott argued for the state.
Case No. CVRI2000221
Appellate Case No. E081230
Read the ruling here.
