Time for another wild and wacky sojourn into the work of the employment lawyer.
Plaintiff sues his employer, a New Jersey school board, for disability discrimination. He loses on summary judgment. The employer, for reasons that will become apparent, also moves for attorneys' fees and sanctions against the plaintiff, but loses. The employer appeals, claiming that the disability claim was completely frivolous and that the plaintiff gave false deposition testimony. This is a difficult appeal for the employer because the district court's ruling is reviewed on an extremely generous "abuse of discretion" standard.
Plaintiff was injured in 1998 when a "wooden speaker" fell on his head. I can recall just such a person giving my high school graduation address. This caused a "post-concussion syndrome" which made the plaintiff extremely tired, caused him difficulty in focusing, gave him headaches and made him sensitive to loud noises. The plaintiff's requested accommodations -- placing all directives in writing, giving him extra time and resources to complete his work, limiting his work day to 8 hours, and providing a quiet, distraction-free working environment -- should have tipped somebody off right away that he was malingering. And if that wasn't enough, plaintiff also claimed that the extreme fatigue he experienced limited him to working 40 hours a week and that the number of hours in his subsequent work days had to be adjusted if he was required to stay later than 4:00 p.m. on a particular day. He claimed he could not chaperone any school events, such as school dances, basketball games, etc., because of his problem with "loud noises". Again, the scam-alert light should have been flashing.
School board attorneys asked the plaintiff some pointed questions at his deposition about what he had done the previous Monday night. After responding that he could not remember, plaintiff then said he had watched the New York Giants football game at home alone; because of his disability, the plaintiff stated there was no way he could have attended the game because he would have been so fatigued afterwards that he would have been forced to take the next day off from work.
Note to anyone being deposed: when you get a specific question like this, it usually means you are being set up. Sort of like, "And what specifically was your relationship with Ms. Lewinsky on the evening of June 2, 1997?"
Of course, the employer had video of the plaintiff on the evening in question. The plaintiff was recorded meeting with a group of fans, driving to Giants Stadium, tailgating in the parking lot, attending the full game, and returning home shortly before 2:00 a.m. and then showing up to work the next day.
After being confronted with this falsehood, the plaintiff claimed that he had something called "False Memory Syndrome." He presented a letter from a doctor explaining that individuals with brain injuries sometimes concoct stories that they sincerely believe to be true when placed under stress (they should have called it "Teenager Out After Curfew on the Weekend Syndrome"). The doctor apparently never treated plaintiff and did not diagnose him with this problem; the letter was simply some type of information piece.
And now it is clear why the school board went after attorneys' fees and a sanction.
Notwithstanding the fact that the plaintiff's evidence did not support even a minimal case of disability discrimination and that his false memory excuse strained credulity, the Court of Appeals, incredibly, found that the district court did not abuse its discretion. In other words, in a clear case of almost certain perjury, both the district court and the court of appeals could not bring themselves to impose some type of penalty on the plaintiff for generating perhaps $50,000 - $75,000 in legal fees for his employer.
And people wonder why these cases still get filed.