Background
Jennifer Payne worked for the Hammond Police Department and most recently held the permanent rank of sergeant before receiving a probationary promotion to lieutenant. In September 2022, she began an extended period of fully paid sick leave following cervical treatment and later lumbar-fusion surgery. While awaiting required return-to-work authorization, she took a previously scheduled trip to Mexico, prompting an internal investigation that found she had violated the department’s sick-leave policy.
Payne filed an EEOC charge in May 2023. The city subsequently demoted her from sergeant to patrol officer for the sick-leave violation, following a state civil-service agency’s recommendation of demotion or discharge. Payne remained medically unable to complete fit-for-duty testing, and her neurosurgeon described her restrictions as likely permanent. After Payne acknowledged at a November 2023 hearing that she could not perform a police officer’s essential duties, the city removed her from service in December 2023. She sued under Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Louisiana Employment Discrimination Law, and the district court granted summary judgment to the city on all claims.
The Court’s Holding
The Fifth Circuit affirmed. Payne’s sex-discrimination claims failed because she did not identify similarly situated male employees who were treated more favorably under nearly identical circumstances. In particular, she did not show that male officers receiving light-duty assignments were, like her, ineligible to work, or provide competent evidence that male colleagues received more favorable treatment under the sick-leave policy.
Her disability-accommodation claims also failed because indefinite leave was not a reasonable accommodation, she lacked medical authorization to work in any capacity, and she did not establish that an available position existed for reassignment. The record also showed that the city engaged in the interactive process. Although the timing of Payne’s demotion established a prima facie causal connection to her EEOC charge, she offered no evidence that the city’s stated reason—the sick-leave violation—was pretextual. Her discharge occurred too long after the charge for timing alone to establish causation, and her wrongful-termination claims failed because she admitted she could not perform the essential duties of a police officer.
Key Takeaways
- A discrimination plaintiff relying on comparators must produce evidence that those employees were similarly situated in nearly identical circumstances.
- The ADA and Louisiana law did not require the city to grant indefinite leave or place Payne in light duty or another position when she lacked return-to-work clearance and did not identify an available position for which she was qualified.
- Close timing supported a prima facie retaliatory-demotion claim, but timing alone did not establish that the city’s stated disciplinary reason was pretextual.
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates the evidentiary showing required to carry employment-discrimination and retaliation claims past summary judgment. Assertions of differential treatment must be supported by competent evidence involving genuinely comparable employees, and temporal proximity generally cannot, by itself, prove pretext.
For disability-accommodation disputes, the opinion underscores that employers need not provide indefinite leave, eliminate essential job duties, or reassign an employee to a position that is unavailable or outside the applicable hiring process. Documented efforts to obtain medical information and discuss possible accommodations can also defeat a claim that the employer failed to engage in the interactive process.