Direct Threat - A Defense Limited
In a recent decision that is certain to reverberate in other circuits, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected the EEOC's interpretation that the ADA allows employers to bar individuals with disabilities from performing a job that poses a direct threat to their own health and safety. Relying on the language of the statute itself, rather than that in the EEOC's regulations, the court ruled in Echazabal v. Chevron USA Inc. that Congress clearly intended the direct threat defense to include within its scope only threats to other individuals in the workplace. To extend the direct threat to the health or safety of the individual would be a form of paternalism that is not a valid reason to deny an individual a job. Employers will now have to balance the right of the person to choose to perform a particular job with its duty to prevent workplace injuries.
Substantially Limiting
Addressing the issue of "substantially limiting," the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in July found that a driver-training instructor who could not tolerate bad weather because of his rheumatoid arthritis was not disabled under the ADA. Using the criteria articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court two years ago in Bragdon v. Abbott, the appeals court held that while there was no dispute that the driver had a physical impairment, the arthritis did not substantially limit a major life activity. The driver also failed to prove that his medical restrictions against exposure to cold or damp weather precluded him from a large number of jobs, since he provided no evidence that he was qualified for any of those jobs or that he would pursue them if he did not have arthritis.
New Guidance on Disability-Related and Medical Questions
The EEOC on July 27 released a new policy guidance explaining the agency's position on the legality of disability-related questions and medical examinations of employees under the ADA. Available on the Internet at http://www.eeoc.gov, the guidance sets forth various specific employment scenarios to explain when disability-related inquiries or medical exams are "job-related and consistent with business necessity" as required under the ADA.
|
