Renae EKSTRAND, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. SCHOOL DISTRICT OF SOMERSET, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 11-1949.
United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.
Argued Feb. 21, 2012. Decided June 26, 2012.
683 F.3d 826
At the second trial, Farrel testified that Griffin Trading‘s London account of segregated customer funds existed to secure customer activity out of its London office; that is, those funds were supposed to “satisfy all of its current obligations to foreign futures.” This means that all of the money in that account was subject to the strictures of
The defendants’ failure to stop the wire transfer to MeesPierson was a breach of their fiduciary duties. That breach caused a loss to Griffin Trading‘s customers equivalent to the amount of the entire transfer. The bankruptcy estate of Griffin Trading is thus entitled to proceed against Farrel and Roger for the damages they caused. We REVERSE and REMAND to the district court for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Carol N. Skinner (argued), Skinner & Associates, Hudson, WI, for Plaintiff-Appellee.
Tom B. Rusboldt (argued), Weld, Riley, Prenn & Ricci, S.C., Eau Claire, WI, for Defendant-Appellant.
Before EASTERBROOK, Chief Judge, BAUER, Circuit Judge, and SHADID, District Judge.*
BAUER, Circuit Judge.
The plaintiff-appellee, Renae Ekstrand, sued the School District of Somerset, Wisconsin, under the American with Disabilities Act (ADA), alleging that the school district failed to accommodate her disability in violation of the statute. The school district moved for summary judgment, which the district court granted. We reversed that ruling in part, holding that there was a triable issue of fact as to whether Ekstrand was a qualified individual with a disability within the meaning of the ADA and as to whether the school district was aware of that disability. Ekstrand v. School Dist. of Somerset, 583 F.3d 972 (7th Cir.2009). The case went to trial. After the jury returned a verdict in favor of Ekstrand, the school district moved for judgment as a matter of law under
Ekstrand taught kindergarten at Somerset Elementary School from 2000 to 2005. In the spring of 2005, she asked to be reassigned to teach a first-grade class, and the school agreed. She was relocated to a first-grade classroom with no exterior windows in a busy, loud area of the school. Ekstrand spoke with her principal several times to request a change of classroom, and although the principal worked to make the existing classroom more hospitable, she denied her requests to switch rooms.
In the fall of 2005, after the school year began, Ekstrand began to experience symptoms of seasonal affective disorder, a form of depression. Both her psychologist, Dr. Randi Erickson, and her primary care physician, Dr. Arnold Potek, recommended that she take a leave of absence due to illness. Her initial leave was only three months, but the following winter, her doctor wrote to the school district to advise that Ekstrand would be unable to return to teach for the remainder of the 2005-06 school term. That leave of absence was then later extended to include the 2006-07 school term.
The events most relevant to the current dispute occurred in the time period after Ekstrand received her initial three-month leave of absence but before the leave was extended for the rest of the school year (roughly the time between October of 2005 and January of 2006). When the case went to trial, the parties argued over whether Ekstrand was ever emotionally capable of returning to work during that time period and whether the school district was aware of her capability to return. For example, a letter from Dr. Erickson dated November 28, 2005, was delivered to the school district‘s office. The letter detailed Dr. Erickson‘s opinion that natural light was crucial to Ekstrand‘s recovery and that her classroom without windows had been a major cause of her condition. This letter backed up Ekstrand‘s prior conversations with both the superintendent and
What follows are just a few of the more relevant factual developments that came out at trial. The school superintendent testified, stating that although Dr. Erickson‘s November 28 letter was delivered to his office‘s business manager, he never saw it until he became aware of Ekstrand‘s lawsuit much later in 2006. The school principal also testified about conversations she had with Ekstrand in which Ekstrand requested a new room with exterior windows. Finally, Dr. Erickson testified that Ekstrand would have been capable of returning to work from October 18 to December 14 if she had been provided a classroom with natural light.
This case now comes before us for the second time. Initially, the school district had filed a motion for summary judgment; the district court granted that motion and we reversed in part, finding that a genuine issue of material fact existed for resolution. This led to a jury trial in the district court to decide the contested issues. Ekstrand won her case, and now the school district appeals the denial of its
II. DISCUSSION
We review the district court‘s denial of a
We begin our analysis by recounting the relevant standard under the ADA. Ekstrand‘s burden at trial was to show that (1) she is a qualified individual with a disability; (2) the school district was aware of her disability; and (3) the school district failed to reasonably accommodate that disability. See, e.g., King v. City of Madison, 550 F.3d 598, 600 (7th Cir.2008). The school district only challenges Ekstrand on prongs (1) and (2), arguing that no reasonable jury could have found for her on those grounds. So was there sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to decide that Ekstrand was a qualified individual with a disability and that the school district knew of that disability? There are several conclusions that reasonable jurors may have drawn given the evidence in this case. Here are just a few: they may have credited Ekstrand‘s own testimony over the superintendent‘s on key issues; they may have found Dr. Erickson convincing when he testified that Ekstrand could have returned to her teaching duties between October and December provided she had a classroom with natural light; and they may have decided not to credit the superintendent‘s testimony that he was late in reading Dr. Erickson‘s letter regarding the importance of natural light to Ekstrand‘s recovery.
Again, these are just a few possibilities. Taken together, these determinations could lead a reasonable jury to conclude that Ekstrand was a qualified individual with a disability in October through early December and that the school district knew about it, but failed to accommodate her with a new classroom. The point is, we are generally forbidden from reexamining the facts found by the jury at trial.
This challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence is particularly weak because we essentially decided these very same issues in Ekstrand‘s favor the last time this case was before us. See Ekstrand v. School Dist. of Somerset, 583 F.3d 972 (7th Cir. 2009). When Ekstrand appealed the entry of summary judgment against her in 2009, we held that a genuine issue of material fact existed both as to whether (1) Ekstrand was a qualified individual with a disability during the relevant time period, and (2) as to whether the school district was aware. Id. at 977. By that, we simply meant that Ekstrand had presented enough evidence for a reasonable jury to find in her favor on those issues. The standard under
III. CONCLUSION
For the aforementioned reasons, the district court‘s order denying the school district‘s