Appellant, E. Joan Shaw, a former employee of appellee W. M. Wrigley, Jr. Company (“Wrigley”), filed suit against the company under OCGA § 34-6A-1 et seq., the Georgia Equal Employment for the Handicapped Code (“GEEHC”), claiming that Wrigley fired her because she had had cancer. A jury found for Wrigley, and appellant brings this appeal. We affirm.
Ms. Shaw was the company nurse at one of Wrigley’s plants when, in early 1983, she was diagnosed as having breast cancer. A mastectomy was performed, the cancer was successfully removed, and approximately four weeks later Shaw returned to her job. According to appellant, her supervisor and other co-workers treated her differently upon her return, and she characterized that treatment as discriminatory and directly related to her cancer. In February 1984, appellant’s employment with Wrigley ended; she claimed she was discharged, and appellee claimed she quit due to personality conflicts. It was undisputed that appellant performed her duties satisfactorily both before and after her surgery. At trial, both sides offered testimony which they felt supported their positions, and the jury was given a set of four interrogatories to answer to determine the outcome of the case. The jury answered the first question, “Did the plaintiff, E. Joan Shaw, voluntarily quit her job with the W. M. Wrigley, Jr. Company; or did the defendant, through an officer or agent, discharge the plaintiff from her job?” by finding that Wrigley constructively discharged Shaw. Having so found, the jury was instructed to answer the second question, “Did the plaintiff present evidence which would indicate that the reason for her discharge was that she had cancer?” The jury answered, “No,” and therefore was instructed not to answer the last two questions, which addressed whether Wrigley had presented reasons for Shaw’s discharge other than her cancer and whether Shaw showed by a preponderance of evidence that despite Wrigley’s stated reason for the discharge, its real reason was because
1. Appellant contends that once the jury determined she had not quit but had been discharged by appellee, appellant was entitled to judgment as a matter of law and that the jury need not have answered any other interrogatories. We disagree.
Cases brought under the GEEHC, the purpose of which is to protect individuals from discrimination by private employers on the basis of various handicaps and disabilities, are similar to those brought under Title VII, the federal provisions prohibiting discrimination in employment on the basis of race and sex. The existence of a prima facie case under the state statute will be most often determined by the formula similar to that announced in
McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green,
Applying the foregoing analysis, appellant’s contention that she was entitled to a verdict as a matter of law once the jury found that she was constructively discharged is unfounded. The first two elements of appellant’s prima facie case were eliminated by the trial
2. In her second enumeration of error, appellant claims that Interrogatory No. 2, which questioned whether she had shown that her firing was due to her cancer, improperly imposed on her the burden of producing more evidence than was necessary to establish a prima fa-cie case of illegal handicap discrimination. In her third enumeration of error, she contends that “Jury Interrogatory No. 2 was improper because it failed to define the difference between the burden of proof and presentation of evidence, and this failure resulted in improper consideration by the jury of the factual issues before it.” Under the McDonnell Douglas/Burdine model that we adopted, once the jury determined that appellant was constructively discharged, it was authorized to decide whether she was discharged because of her cancer-based handicap. The jury found that she did not present evidence to indicate that her discharge was due to discrimination against her because of her cancer.
Our review of the record shows that the jurors were adequately and properly instructed as to which party carried the burdens of production of evidence and persuasion, and that the jury interrogatories were sufficiently drawn. Appellant had, arguably, produced evidence to make out her prima facie case as far as the trial court was concerned. If she had not, the trial court would have granted appellee’s motion for directed verdict at the close of appellant’s evidence. However, to prevail, appellant was required to persuade the jury that she was discharged because of her handicap, which she apparently did not do. Appellant’s second and third enumerations have no merit.
3. In appellant’s last enumeration, she contends that the trial
Judgment affirmed.