Plaintiff, a full-time bookkeeper for the parish, took a 10-month leave of absence for medical reasons. During her absence, a pastor handled plaintiff’s job and found it could be handled with only part-time work. So when plaintiff wished to return, she was offered only part-time employment. She refused and sue for disability discrimination. This decision affirms summary judgment against her because she could not show that the employer’s legitimate business reason for not offering full time work was pretextual. The decision goes out of its way to say that EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc. (2015) 135 S.Ct. 2028, holding that an employee needs to show only that the employer’s unwillingness to accommodate a religious obligation was a motivating factor in the employer’s adverse employment action applies only in Title VII cases, not to ADA cases such as this one where the plaintiff must show that discriminatory animus was the sole or one of several reasons for the adverse employment action. Here, plaintiff could not make that showing because she couldn’t establish that a full-time post was available when she wanted to return to work.
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (per curiam); June 7, 2016 (superseding prior opinion filed April 14, 2016); 2016 WL 3165856