July 2010 - Parks & Recreation - 29

Defendants' obligation to engage in
the interactive process to find reasonable accommodations was triggered
once Foster informed his supervisors
that he was concerned about handling
the increased responsibility for two
centers at once in relation to his injuries and resulting disability.
Foster informed Defendants that he
was having difficulties related to the
aftermath of his concussion heading
both centers at the same time, in combination with Defendants' knowledge
of the assault a few months before
causing a closed head injury, creates a
triable issue of fact as to whether Defendants failed to engage in the
interactive process to accommodate
Foster's alleged disability.

In the opinion of the court, Foster's
statements to his supervisors that " running two centers simultaneously by himself posed special difficulties " could be
" construed as a request that Defendants
accommodate him by only assigning
him to one center or by providing further assistance. " Further, the court noted
that supervisor Koney had testified that
" there were other individuals who could
have taken over Brookdale. "
As noted by the court, there was
some evidence of accommodation in
that " Defendants offered assistance
to Foster with budgeting issues, and
that Radical Rovers, an organization
that provides prog rams to hard-toreach youth, was going to take over
managing the A llendale center. " On
the other hand, the court found " Foster remained as the manager of the
two centers for approximately eight
weeks, from March 26, 2007 through
May 21, 2007, " despite statements to
parks and recreation director JonesTaylor in late March 2007 that managing two centers would be difficult
for him in light of the " aftermath of the
concussion. "
In light of such conflicting evidence,
the federal district court denied the
City's motion for summary judgment
which would have effectively dismissed
Foster's ADA " failure to accommodate "

claim. As a result, in a full trial, Foster
would have an opportunity to prove his
ADA claim that the City had failed to
provide him with a " reasonable accommodation " for a known cognitive impairment which may have significantly
limited his ability to work.


James C. Kozlowski, J.D., Ph.D. is an
associate professor in the School of
Recreation, Health, and Tourism at
George Mason University in Manassas,
Virginia. E Mail: jkozlows@gmu.edu
Webpage: http://mason.gmu.
edu/~jkozlows

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July 2010 - Parks & Recreation

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