Ziadeh v. ColumbusZiadeh v. Columbus
Rendered on March 30, 2010
Daniel H. Klos, for appellant.
Richard C. Pfeiffer, Jr., City Attorney, and Wendy S. Kane, for appellee.
APPEAL from the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas
KLATT, J.
{¶1} Plaintiff-appellant, Salah Ziadeh, appeals from a judgment of the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas in favor of defendant-appellee, the City of Columbus (“City“). For the following reasons, we affirm.
{¶2} In late February 2004, Ziadeh underwent cardiac surgery to treat a 90 percent blockage in one of his arteries. After surgery, Ziadeh entered cardiac rehabilitation. At the time of his surgery and rehabilitation, the City employed Ziadeh as a street cleaning and maintenance supervisor. To allow him time to recover, the City
{¶3} On October 28, 2004, Ziadeh and his wife attended a fitness-for-duty hearing. According to Ziadeh and his wife, at the hearing, they told Becky Perkins, a human resources analyst for the City, that they expected Ziadeh‘s physician to release him to return to work in late November. Ziadeh and his wife asked Perkins if she could do anything to extend his leave until that time.
{¶4} Perkins remembers this conversation differently. Perkins does not recall the Ziadehs representing that Ziadeh might be able to return to work in late November. According to Perkins, the only information she had regarding Ziadeh‘s prognosis came from a physician‘s report attached to Ziadeh‘s application for disability retirement. That report stated that Ziadeh was permanently incapacitated from the performance of his job duties.
{¶5} At the end of the hearing, the hearing examiner ordered the City to grant Ziadeh leave without pay until November 6, 2004 so that he could receive health insurance benefits through the end of November. On November 6, 2004, the City terminated Ziadeh‘s employment.
{¶6} On September 10, 2007, Ziadeh filed suit against the City and, in relevant part, claimed that the City failed to accommodate his disability in violation of
{¶7} Perkins acknowledged that she did not mention either program to Ziadeh. Because Perkins believed Ziadeh was permanently incapacitated and unable to return to work, she did not see how either program would assist him.
{¶8} The jury rendered its verdict for the City, and the magistrate reported that verdict to the trial court. The trial court entered judgment in favor of the City in a judgment entry dated May 14, 2009. Ziadeh now appeals from that judgment, and he assigns the following errors:
- [1.] The Court of Common Pleas Magistrate Judge abused his discretion and committed plain error because he failed to instruct the jury on the law of disability discrimination requiring an interactive process on the part of both the employer and employee to find a reasonable accommodation for a disabled employee.
- [2.] The Court of Common Pleas Magistrate Judge abused his discretion and committed plain error because he failed to instruct the jury on the law of disability discrimination and for proposed jury instructions of the Plaintiff, or the Defendant, on the basis that the jury instructions were way too long already and that giving a favorable instruction for one party would require giving a favorable instruction for the other party, such
being a completely arbitrary and capricious standard to deny the Plaintiff‘s proposed instructions or withhold instructions essential to the law of the case.
{¶9} Because they are interrelated, we will address Ziadeh‘s two assignments of error together. By these assignments of error, Ziadeh argues that the jury should have received his proposed jury instruction regarding an employer‘s duty to interact with the employee in good faith to arrive at a reasonable accommodation for the employee‘s disability. Before we consider the merits of this argument, we must determine the appropriate standard of review.
{¶10}
{¶11} In the case at bar, Ziadeh did not file any objections alleging error in the magistrate‘s handling of the jury trial. We therefore limit our review of the magistrate‘s decision to a consideration of whether it amounts to plain error.
{¶12} Appellate courts only find plain error in those exceptional circumstances where the error “seriously affects the basic fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the judicial process, thereby challenging the legitimacy of the underlying judicial process itself.” Goldfuss v. Davidson, 79 Ohio St.3d 116, 123, 1997-Ohio-401. Here, Ziadeh claims that such error arose from the magistrate‘s refusal to give his proposed jury instruction on the interactive process an employer and employee must engage in to find a reasonable accommodation for the employee‘s disability. Ziadeh, however, failed to file his proposed jury instructions with the trial court, and thus, they do not appear anywhere in the record.1 Accordingly, we are without the means to review the error asserted. Without the text of the proposed jury instruction, we are unable to determine whether it contained a correct statement of the law applicable to the facts of this case. Murphy v. Carrollton Mfg. Co. (1991), 61 Ohio St.3d 585, 591 (” ‘Ordinarily requested instructions should be given if they are correct statements of the law applicable to the facts in the case and reasonable minds might reach the conclusion sought by the instruction.’ “) (quoting Markus & Palmer, Trial Handbook for Ohio Lawyers (3d ed.1971) 860, Section 36:2).
{¶14} For the foregoing reasons, we overrule Ziadeh‘s two assignments of error, and we affirm the judgment of the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas.
Judgment affirmed.
TYACK, P.J., and SADLER, J., concur.