Hawaii high court revives suit involving city worker with mental injury comp claim

The Supreme Court of Hawaii on Tuesday revived a lawsuit filed by a City of Honolulu worker who alleged that the city failed to accommodate her mental disability after a workers compensation claim for a “major depressive disorder and anxiety disorder” she suffered from being verbally harassed by a supervisor.

As documented in SCAP-23-0000416, the woman, who worked in the city’s Department of Budget and Fiscal Services’ Real Property Assessment Division for over 20 years, went on leave “intermittently” for four years between 2014 and 2018 and in 2017 requested a reasonable accommodation to work with another supervisor because of her medical condition and related work restriction, which was that she could not work with the supervisor. The city denied her request.

In February 2018, the woman returned to her job when the supervisor who harassed her had left his position. Less than three months after returning from leave, her new supervisor issued her a substandard performance evaluation and she was subsequently demoted.

At the time of her substandard evaluation and demotion, her new supervisor “was purportedly aware” of her prior issues with her former supervisor and her diagnoses and her workers comp leave, according to court documents.

She filed claims with the Hawai‘i Civil Rights Commission asserting disability discrimination and retaliation, and she subsequently filed a lawsuit alleging that the city discriminated against her because of her disability, denied her a reasonable accommodation, and retaliated against her based on two prior HCRC complaints she filed in 2016 and the reasonable accommodation request she submitted in November 2017. The city moved for summary judgment on all claims, which a circuit court granted.

The state’s highest court reversed in part, holding that the woman “established a prima facie case of disability discrimination” and that her negative evaluation and demotion were “pretextual.” The court also found that her request for an alternate supervisor “was not, as a matter of law, an unreasonable accommodation.”

However, the court tossed the claim over the city not engaging in the interactive process and that it is “uncontested” that the city offered her a position in another department.