Watertown Commission on Disability

When a postal worker was terminated for losing a key and failing to notify a supervisor about the loss, the postal service had no obligation to treat the employee any differently even though she did not hear the key drop because of a known, existing hearing problem, according to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

As a rural carrier associate for the U.S. Postal Service in Albuquerque, N.M., Imelda Hernandez was given an “arrow key” that opened every customer mailbox in Albuquerque. Mail carriers were required to keep the key attached to their clothing by a chain at all times while on duty and turn it in daily on completion of duty.

On May 22, 2006, Hernandez did not hear her key drop while on her mail route because of profound hearing loss, a fact she had noted on her employment application. A co-worker subsequently informed their supervisor that Hernandez had lost her key and that he had lent her his key to finish her route.
A customer discovered the key two days later.

Under the postal service’s collective bargaining agreement, Hernandez had not completed her probationary employment and therefore was an at-will employee whose employment could be terminated for any nondiscriminatory reason. When her supervisor interviewed Hernandez about the incident, she admitted she lost the key and that it was not attached to her clothing while she was delivering the mail. As a result of her admissions, her supervisor terminated Hernandez.

Hernandez asserted that she was hired with full knowledge on the part of the postal service that she was hearing impaired. Hernandez claimed the postal service fired her without any effort to accommodate her disability and no dialogue intended to address her need for disability accommodation. Having been blamed for an accident that was purely the result of her hearing loss,
Hernandez argued that the circumstances raised the question of whether the she was terminated in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

The postal service contended there were legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for terminating Hernandez. Noting there was no evidence Hernandez requested accommodation relating to her hearing loss, the district court agreed and granted the postal service summary judgment.

Although Hernandez described one conversation she allegedly had with another postal service employee who told her that she, too, had lost a key but was not fired, the 10th Circuit found that Hernandez presented no evidence that this employee was similarly situated to her. There was no evidence demonstrating whether the employee was on probation when the key was lost, when the alleged loss happened, who supervised the employee or any other evidence indicating that the circumstances were comparable to Hernandez’s. “Similarly situated employees are those who deal with the same supervisor and are subject to the same standards governing performance evaluation and discipline.”

Hernandez further claimed that she was terminated because her “supervisors wanted her out of the way in case there were inquiries from higher up” because the circumstances of the loss of her key would reflect poorly on them. However, the 10th Circuit observed that a supervisor’s wish to hide his mismanagement is not illegal discrimination. “Title VII does not prohibit an employer from making hasty decisions that appear harsh; what it forbids are decisions made with discriminatory animus.”

Although Hernandez believed that she should have been treated differently because she had a hearing problem and did not hear the key drop, the 10th Circuit found no inference of discrimination by the postal service on any basis and affirmed the lower court’s ruling.