SARA L. ELLIS, United States District Judge.
After he was unable to provide a urine sample for a random drug test, Plaintiff Greg Penteris was terminated from his job as a pipefitter. Claiming that he suffers from "shy bladder syndrome," also known as paruresis, and an enlarged prostate, he filed this lawsuit against Defendants Citgo Petroleum Corporation ("Citgo"), Disa, Inc. ("Disa"),
In December 2013, Penteris was working for Turner Industries Group, L.L.C., Turner Industrial Maintenance, L.L.C., Turner Specialty Services, L.L.C. (collectively, "Turner"),
Penteris informed Disa or Priority Staffing personnel that he had difficulty urinating and asked for water. Disa or Priority Staffing personnel documented that they gave him forty ounces of water to drink over the course of two and a half hours on a shy bladder log. Penteris claims, however, that he received less than this amount and that he instead drank half of his own bottle of water in addition to three small cups of water provided by Disa or Priority Staffing personnel. Penteris also asked for a quieter space to urinate. He was allowed to use a larger bathroom for one attempt, but in that case the personnel monitoring him waited right outside the stall. After that attempt, Penteris remarked that "[i]t is just not going to let me do it." Compl. ¶ 49.
After three hours passed, Disa or Priority Staffing personnel terminated the collection procedure in accordance with the instructions on the shy bladder log. Deemed to have failed the test, Disa or Priority Staffing personnel escorted Penteris to John Novak, the head of safety. Novak told Penteris to go to Physicians Immediate Care in Bolingbrook, Illinois, which referred him to Silver Cross Hospital in Joliet. Isabelle Sanchez, who works for Disa, also told Penteris to see a urologist. Ultimately, Penteris met with Dr. Sawhney at Advanced Urology Associates the following day and for further testing on December 24. Dr. Sawhney diagnosed Penteris with an enlarged prostate on December 24, 2013, and conveyed that diagnosis to Turner and Disa. An enlarged prostate can block urine flow and cause difficulty initiating urination.
Penteris also met with Dr. Kelly Hird, a psychologist, who diagnosed him with paruresis in January 2014. Paruresis, also known as shy bladder syndrome, is an anxiety condition characterized by an individual's fear of urinating in public restrooms when others are present. This diagnosis, although new, reflected issues with which Penteris had been dealing for some time through other self-designed coping mechanisms. For example, Penteris would avoid situations where he had to urinate in public and wait until he returned home, use single-stall restrooms removed from foot traffic and human voices, and distract himself by making telephone calls, running water, flushing the toilet, or making other sounds. When he was forced to take a drug test for work in the past, he had often received the order on the night shift and then held his first urine of the day until he arrived at the medical facility for the drug test. Penteris provided the paruresis diagnosis to Defendants and Turner. On his own initiative, Penteris took a drug test based on a hair sample on December 27, 2013, which tested negative. He provided this result to Defendants and Turner as well. Nonetheless, Penteris has not worked since December 19, 2013.
A motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) challenges the sufficiency of the complaint, not its merits. Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6); Gibson v. City of Chicago, 910 F.2d 1510, 1520 (7th Cir.1990). In considering a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, the Court accepts as true all well-pleaded facts in the plaintiff's complaint and draws all reasonable inferences from those facts in the plaintiff's favor. AnchorBank, FSB v. Hofer, 649 F.3d 610, 614 (7th Cir.2011). To survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the complaint must not only provide the defendant with fair notice of a claim's basis but must also be facially plausible. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009); see also Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955,
Disa and Priority Staffing have both moved to dismiss Penteris' ADA claim against them, arguing that they did not employ Penteris and that they are not entities required to provide public accommodations such that an ADA claim could be brought against them absent an employment relationship. Penteris acknowledges that he is not basing his ADA claim against Disa and Priority Staffing on the existence of an employment relationship, and thus the Court must only consider whether Penteris has stated a claim against Disa and Priority Staffing under Title III of the ADA, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in places of public accommodation. 42 U.S.C. § 12182(a).
Under Title III, the owner or operator of a facility open to the public "cannot exclude disabled persons from entering the facility and, once in, from using the facility in the same way that the non-disabled do." Doe v. Mut. of Omaha Ins. Co., 179 F.3d 557, 559 (7th Cir.1999). The phrase "public accommodation" is to be "construed liberally to afford people with disabilities equal access to the wide variety of establishments available to the nondisabled." PGA Tour, Inc. v. Martin, 532 U.S. 661, 676-77, 121 S.Ct. 1879, 149 L.Ed.2d 904 (2001). Penteris alleges that Disa and Priority Staffing are public accommodations, explaining in his response briefs that they are health care providers or other service establishments whose operations affect commerce. See 42 U.S.C. § 12181(7)(F) (defining "public accommodation" to include a "professional office of a health care provider, hospital, or other service establishment"). But Disa and Priority Staffing suggest that the testing facility, which was on Citgo property, cannot be considered a place of public accommodation because the testing occurred on private property and not at the office of a health care provider. See Morgan v. Joint Admin. Bd., Ret. Plan of Pillsbury Co. & Am. Fed'n of Grain Millers, AFL-CIO-CLC, 268 F.3d 456, 459 (7th Cir.2001) (public accommodation claim failed where retirement plan was "a private deal, not a public offering"). Disa and Priority Staffing, however, are asking the Court to go beyond the complaint to make this determination, which the Court cannot do in considering a motion to dismiss. Disa and Priority Staffing also cite to Palonis v. Jewel Food Stores, Inc., 383 F.Supp.2d 1072 (N.D.Ill.2005), for the proposition that "drug testing facilities are not health care services." Doc. 74 at 2; see also Doc. 47 at 2. Palonis did not consider a Title III claim but instead found, in the context of a state law negligence claim, that the defendant, a drug testing laboratory, did not engage in a "healing art," as defined by Illinois law, when it administered a drug test. Id. at 1074. Even if drug testing is not considered a "healing art" or even "health care services" under Title III, however, it may still qualify as a service that affects commerce, bringing it within Title III's definition of a "public accommodation." Thus, at this stage, accepting Penteris' well-pleaded facts and drawing all reasonable inferences in his favor, the Court finds that he has sufficiently alleged that Disa and Priority Staffing are places of public accommodation.
Although Penteris' claim appears to be a novel one — the Court has been unable to find any case law under Title III regarding the specific situation at hand — drawing all reasonable inferences in Penteris' favor, as the Court must at this stage, the Court finds that he has stated a claim against Disa and Priority Staffing under Title III of the ADA. Penteris is likely to face several obstacles in establishing his Title III claim, but the Court cannot address these issues on the record before it.
Unlike the claim against Disa and Priority Staffing, Penteris brings his claim against Citgo under Title I of the ADA, alleging that, with Turner, Citgo was his joint employer or, alternatively, that Turner was Citgo's agent. Citgo argues, however, that Penteris has failed to sufficiently allege facts to state a claim against it on these theories. The Seventh Circuit recently clarified the standard for determining whether an entity should be considered a joint employer. See Love v. JP Cullen & Sons, Inc., 779 F.3d 697 (7th Cir.2015) (analyzing whether defendant was an employer for Title VII purposes).
Knight v. United Farm Bureau Mut. Ins. Co., 950 F.2d 377, 378-79 (7th Cir.1991). The second considers "the amount of control exerted by the alleged de facto employer, with a particular emphasis on the `economic realities' of the employment relationship." Love, 779 F.3d at 702 (citations omitted). Despite these seemingly separate tests, the Love court emphasized that they are not "substantively incompatible," and rather that the Knight factors "are simply a more detailed application of the economic and control considerations present in the `economic realities' test." Id.
Determining whether an entity is a joint employer is a fact-intensive inquiry that typically requires further development through discovery, as demonstrated by the cases Citgo cites. See, e.g., Wilcox v. Allstate Corp., No. 11 C 814, 2012 WL 6569729, at *11-13 (N.D.Ill. Dec. 17, 2012) (considering joint employer theory at summary judgment stage); Clifford v. Patterson Cos., No. 08 C 0828, 2009 WL 3852447, at *9-10 (N.D.Ill. Nov. 18, 2009) (same). Penteris alleges that Citgo owned the work site at which he was employed and that the drug test was performed at Turner and Citgo's direction. He further clarifies in his response brief that he was escorted off Citgo's property by Citgo's head of security when he could not provide a urine sample. Doc. 43 at 7; see Help At Home, Inc. v. Med. Capital, LLC, 260 F.3d 748, 752-53 (7th Cir.2001) (plaintiff may supplement complaint with additional facts consistent with allegations in the complaint). It is unclear from the complaint which entity made the termination decision, but drawing inferences in Penteris' favor, his allegations suggest that Citgo exercised control over the administration of the drug test and employment decisions. Discovery may prove otherwise, but the Court finds Penteris' allegations sufficient to meet Rule 8's liberal pleading requirements. Cf. Shah v. Littelfuse Inc., No. 12 CV 6845, 2013 WL 1828926, at *3-5 (N.D.Ill. Apr. 29, 2013) (dismissing temporary employment agency where allegations suggested it was only an intermediary between plaintiff and employer and did not exercise control over plaintiff's day-to-day work or play any role in decision to terminate plaintiff's employment).
Citgo argues that even if the Court finds that Penteris adequately alleges that it is a joint employer, Penteris' claim must still be dismissed because he has not adequately alleged Citgo's involvement in the alleged discrimination nor its knowledge of Penteris' disability. In the Title VII situation, courts have found a joint employer liable where it "knew or should have known of the discriminatory conduct and failed to take prompt corrective measures within its control." Shah, 2013 WL 1828926, at *6. Similarly, in the ADA Title I context, employers are only required to accommodate known disabilities, with an employee normally required to request accommodation before liability attaches. See 42 U.S.C. § 12112(b)(5)(A); Cloe v. City of Indianapolis, 712 F.3d 1171,
Penteris acknowledges that his IHRA claim is not ripe and was only included in his complaint to reserve his right to bring the claim in the future. He also acknowledges that he did not file a claim with the IHRA against Disa or Priority Staffing. Because Penteris admits that the IHRA claim is not ripe, it is dismissed without prejudice.
For the foregoing reasons, Defendants' motions to dismiss [21, 26, 38] are granted in part and denied in part. Penteris' ADA Title I claim is asserted only against Citgo. Penteris' ADA Title III claim is asserted only against Disa and Priority Staffing. Penteris' IHRA claim is dismissed without prejudice. Defendants are ordered to answer the remaining allegations of the complaint by May 20, 2015.