Retaliation for an employee’s exercise of her rights under the Worker’s Disability Compensation Act (WDCA); MCL 418.301(13); Claim under the Persons with Disabilities Civil Rights Act (PWDCRA); Peden v City of Detroit

Holding that the trial court did not err in dismissing plaintiff-former employee’s WDCA retaliation and PWDCRA claims, the court affirmed. She was terminated from her position as a security officer for defendant. As to her PWDCRA claim, the court concluded that, regardless whether a statement in a doctor’s “report was inadmissible hearsay, it was error for the trial court to recite that statement as fact because there was at least a question of fact whether defendant offered plaintiff an accommodation in which ‘she was permitted to sit for four hours and then stand for four hours.’ Plaintiff testified that, despite her requests, she was not given any breaks or chances to limit her standing while working for defendant[.]” But she was not entitled to appellate relief because the report statement was immaterial to the trial court’s ruling. It reasoned that her “failure-to-accommodate claim had to be dismissed because plaintiff could not prove the second element[.]” It found that defendant showed that her “disability directly related to her ability to perform an essential function required of an individual working as either a security guard or an ID checker for defendant, and that [she] failed to proffer evidence creating a genuine issue of material fact as to this issue.” It also concluded that, to the extent her failure-to-accommodate claim was based on defendant’s not providing her with a chair, she “failed to provide any evidence tending to establish that she asked defendant for a chair in a written request, which the [trial] court opined was required to sustain” the claim. “Neither basis for dismissal relied on” the report statement. As to her WDCA retaliation claim, the trial court dismissed it based on (1) the lack of “a causal connection between a protected activity and any alleged retaliation” and (2) its conclusion that no reasonable trier of fact could find her “firing had a retaliatory motive given that defendant had repeatedly extended plaintiff’s medical leave, and the evidence established that [she] had still not been medically cleared to return to work.” She did not address either of these reasons and thus, was not entitled to relief.