FAA Offered Reasonable Accommodation For Air-Traffic Controller’s Injury
This case stems largely from a knee injury Joseph M. Bellino suffered while tracking planes in the air-traffic-control tower of Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. As is relevant here, there are two kinds of air-traffic controllers: those who coordinate the planes' movements from a remote location via radar and those who, like Bellino, coordinate the planes' takeoffs and landings from the airport's control tower. The latter job involves frequent movement around the tower to keep a clear line of sight, and Bellino's injury made this hard to do.
When Bellino requested an accommodation, his supervisors at the Federal Aviation Administration offered to staff him in front of the radar instead, a job he had performed for years before moving to the tower. But Bellino refused, and a few years later, this lawsuit followed. Bellino alleged below that the FAA violated the Rehabilitation Act by failing to reasonably accommodate his disability, by retaliating against him for filing complaints with the EEOC, and by creating a hostile work environment. The district court held otherwise, granting the defendant’s motion for summary judgment. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that decision.
Bellino v. Peters
The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals’ jurisdiction includes Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.