Bradley T. Ellerman v. BROOKE L. ROLLINS, United States Secretary of Agriculture

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted March 5, 2025*
Decided March 7, 2025
Before
MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge
CANDACE JACKSON-AKIWUMI, Circuit Judge
JOSHUA P. KOLAR, Circuit Judge
No. 24-2578
BRADLEY T. ELLERMAN,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
BROOKE L. ROLLINS, United States
Secretary of Agriculture,
Defendant-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Western District of
Wisconsin.
No. 23-cv-119-jdp
James D. Peterson,
Chief Judge.
O R D E R
Bradley Ellerman, a disabled job applicant in Wisconsin, received a tentative
offer from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for a job located in Kansas City, Missouri.
After receiving the offer, Ellerman asked to telework from Wisconsin to avoid
relocating, but the Department refused his request while offering other
* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and
record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not
significantly aid the court. F ED. R. A PP . P. 34(a)(2)(C).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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No. 24-2578 Page 2
accommodations, which he deemed ineffective. Ellerman sued the Department for
violating the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. See 29 U.S.C. § 794. The district court entered
summary judgment for the Department, concluding that no jury could find that the
employer was required to let Ellerman remain in Wisconsin as a reasonable
accommodation. Because Ellerman provided no evidence that he could not relocate
because of his disabilities, we affirm.
We construe the record in favor of Ellerman, the non-movant. See Smithson v.
Austin, 86 F.4th 815, 819–20 (7th Cir. 2023). In May 2019, Ellerman, a Wisconsin resident,
applied for a position as Human Resources Specialist with the duty station of Kansas
City. Barry Culbreath, who was responsible for selecting and supervising the candidate,
extended a tentative offer to Ellerman in August 2019. Ellerman then emailed
Culbreath, asking for the first time whether the job could be done via telework from his
Wisconsin home or from the Department’s office in Wisconsin. Culbreath explained
that the Department’s policy permitted only one day per week of telework, and he
wanted Ellerman to be part of the team that he was building in Kansas City.
In a follow-up email, Ellerman clarified that he was seeking a reasonable
accommodation for a disability: a traumatic brain injury and injuries to his eye and hip
from a 2012 accident. He also noted that he did not want to relocate his family from
Wisconsin to Kansas City. Later, Ellerman submitted letters from medical providers that
explained his disabilities. One letter advised that he suffered from visual impairments;
another letter (from 2017) recommended that he be permitted to work from home
because his hip pain made commuting intolerable; and one letter from October 2019
stated that he suffered from chronic hip pain and fatigue because of his injuries.
In response, Culbreath offered Ellerman an exception to the Department’s
telework policy. Ellerman could work remotely up to four days per week and in the
Kansas City office one day per week. In addition, Ellerman would be reimbursed for
public transportation costs and would receive an adjustable desk. Ellerman rebuffed the
offer, reiterating that he wanted to maintain his residence in Wisconsin. Ellerman stated
that he “believe[d] that there are disability-related reasons influencing/necessitating
[his] desire to request this,” and expressed his belief that he could perform the job from
his home or from the Department’s office in Wisconsin.
The Department rejected Ellerman’s request to work from Wisconsin. Instead, it
offered visual assistive technology to accommodate his visual impairments, and again
the option to telework four days a week, reimbursement of public transportations costs,

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No. 24-2578 Page 3
and an adjustable desk. Ellerman did not accept that offer and then filed a charge with
the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Ellerman later sued the Department for violating the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
See 29 U.S.C. § 794. Ellerman asserted that the Department failed to reasonably
accommodate his disability or to explain why it denied his request to work in
Wisconsin. He further alleged that the Department stopped communicating with him in
November 2019 and therefore abandoned the interactive process that is required when
a disabled person requests a reasonable accommodation.
The district court entered summary judgment for the Department, ruling that
Ellerman lacked evidence that his disabilities prevented him from relocating to Kansas
City. The Department did not dispute that Ellerman needed an accommodation for his
disabilities or that he was qualified for the job; instead, it asserted that Ellerman failed
to show that his requested accommodation—working from Wisconsin—was
reasonable. The court agreed and observed that none of the letters from Ellerman’s
medical providers suggested that his disabilities prevented him from relocating; it
further concluded that the Department had engaged in the interactive process by
communicating with Ellerman for months about possible accommodations.
Ellerman now challenges the summary judgment ruling, a decision we review
de novo. See Smithson, 86 F.4th at 819–20. For his claim to survive summary judgment,
Ellerman needed evidence that (1) he was a qualified person with a disability; (2) the
Department was aware of his disability; and (3) the Department failed to reasonably
accommodate it. See Sansone v. Brennan, 917 F.3d 975, 979 & n.1 (7th Cir. 2019) (failure-
to-accommodate claims under Rehabilitation Act have same elements as those under
Americans with Disabilities Act). Ellerman also had to show that his proposed
accommodation was reasonable. See Ellison v. United States Postal Serv., 84 F.4th 750, 756
(7th Cir. 2023).
Ellerman failed to establish that the Department failed to reasonably
accommodate his disabilities. Although he asserts now that he was merely requesting to
work from home (regardless of location) as a letter from his doctor recommended, this
framing is unsupported by the record. The evidence establishes that Ellerman told the
Department that he was willing to work at home or on-site in Wisconsin but that he was
opposed to relocating to Kansas City.
Further, Ellerman failed to provide the Department with medical evidence
connecting his requested accommodation to his disabilities. See Wells v. Winnebago

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No. 24-2578 Page 4
County, 820 F.3d 864, 867 (7th Cir. 2016) (applying ADA). And the Department was not
required to accommodate Ellerman’s request without evidence of that connection.
See Ekstrand v. Sch. Dist. of Somerset, 583 F.3d 972, 976–77 (7th Cir. 2009) (applying ADA).
Ellerman’s medical documents did not corroborate his claim that his disabilities
prevented him from relocating. The record contains only his own vague statement that
“disability-related reasons” justified his request, but no medical evidence supports that
assertion. Ellerman suggests that he could have produced the required evidence at trial,
but he needed to present it to the Department when he requested the accommodation in
2019. See Wells, 820 F.3d at 867.
Further, Ellerman’s claim that the Department violated the Rehabilitation Act by
failing to engage in the interactive process after he rejected its offer of ineffective
accommodations is unavailing. The interactive process is a means of identifying a
reasonable accommodation through cooperation between the employer and employee.
See Sansone, 917 F.3d at 979–80. But a breakdown of the interactive process—assuming
there was one—does not give rise to an independent claim. Id. Instead, it can be
evidence that a reasonable accommodation was possible and the employer failed to
offer it. Id. at 980. But as we explained, Ellerman failed to show that his requested
accommodation was reasonable or that the Department failed to offer a reasonable
accommodation. Therefore, his claim cannot withstand summary judgment.
AFFIRMED

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