Patton v. Jacobs Engineering Group

The Fifth Circuit treated plaintiff's petition for rehearing en banc as a petition for panel rehearing and denied the petition for panel rehearing. The court withdrew its prior opinion and substituted the following opinion.The court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment against plaintiff on his failure to accommodate and hostile work environment claims. The court held that plaintiff's failure to accommodate claim could reasonably be expected to, and in fact did, grow out of his charge of discrimination; there was insufficient evidence to prove defendants' knowledge of plaintiff's disability where defendants did not attribute plaintiff's limitation -- sensitivity to noise -- to a physical or mental impairment; a jury could find that the harassment plaintiff experienced was sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the terms and conditions of his employment; but, because plaintiff did not challenge on appeal the district court's determination that he unreasonably failed to avail himself of the procedures set forth in the anti-harassment policies maintained by defendants, he forfeited his objection to this determination. View "Patton v. Jacobs Engineering Group" on Justia Law