High Court to Weigh What’s a Disability
The Supreme Court, heeding complaints from two major corporations, agreed Monday to decide whether workers with repetitive stress injuries can qualify as disabled employees under the federal anti-discrimination law.
At issue is the reach of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the 1990 law that requires employers to make “reasonable accommodations” for qualified workers who are limited by mental or physical impairments.
From the start, it has been unclear exactly who qualifies for protection under the law, which cites impairments that “substantially limit one or more major life activities” such as walking, seeing, working or performing manual tasks.
This law should not be confused with workers’ compensation laws or with the Social Security provision that provides benefits for those who are totally disabled and unable to work.
By contrast, the ADA forbids job discrimination against those who want to work.
But business lawyers said the law should be read narrowly to protect only people with obvious disabilities--such as those who are blind, deaf or need a wheelchair to get around. They worry that companies would face a deluge of lawsuits if the law is read broadly.
Two years ago, the Supreme Court sided with business in the first round of cases interpreting the law. It ruled that the law did not cover prospective workers who were rejected because of treatable diseases or bad eyesight. The justices described these as ordinary impairments that can be corrected and do not rise to the level of a true disability.
Now, the court will take up the question of whether the law protects a worker who is unable to do a particular job because of a physical ailment, such as tendinitis or back trouble, that was caused by that job.
The outcome in the two cases, to be heard in the fall, could affect the estimated 1 million U.S. workers who suffer from repetitive motion injuries. They range from typists to assembly line workers to baggage handlers.
Sometimes these injuries are temporary and can be relieved with rest or exercise. In other instances, the crippling pain does not subside and prevents the employee from resuming the same work.
If workers are judged to have a disability, the ADA requires the employer to make reasonable accommodations, such as reassigning them to a job that does not strain injured wrists, shoulders or back. However, if the injury does not qualify as a disability, the employer is not legally obligated to find them other work.
In their appeals to the high court, corporate lawyers say the law does not cover workers whose injuries may prevent them from one kind of job, but not from another.
The Toyota Motor Corp. is fighting a discrimination claim from Ella Williams, who used pneumatic tools on the auto assembly line at a Kentucky plant. She developed pain from carpal tunnel syndrome in her wrists and tendinitis in her neck and arms. She asked to be reassigned to inspect the paint jobs on cars, but the company refused and fired her.
Williams sued for damages, and by a 2-1 vote, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati cleared the way for her claim to be heard by a jury. The judges said her injury is “analogous to having damaged or deformed limbs.”
In its appeal, Toyota Motors vs. Williams, 00-1089, the auto maker urged the high court to throw out her claim without a trial and to rule that a worker’s inability to do a “particular job” on a assembly line does not rise to the level of having a disability.
The National Assn. of Manufacturers joined the case in support of Toyota. “Simply being unable to perform a limited range of manual functions--the ability to work with a tool grasped in hand at shoulder height for an extended period of time--is not a disability within the plain meaning of the ADA,” said the group’s lawyers.
In the second case, US Airways Inc. is fighting a former cargo handler who injured his back while working at San Francisco International Airport. Robert Barnett, the plaintiff, asked to be reassigned to the mail room. But the airline said that more senior workers wanted the mail room job and that Barnett was not entitled to a preference because of his back injury.
He sued under the ADA, and at first, a federal judge in San Francisco threw out his claim. In October, however, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals revived Barnett’s case and, in an 8-3 ruling, sent it to a jury trial.
The airline appealed, arguing that Barnett was not truly disabled and that the company was not obliged to give him special treatment because of his back trouble.
The Supreme Court announced Monday that it would hear the case of US Airways vs. Barnett, 00-1250, to clarify what is a reasonable accommodation.
In other actions, the court:
* Stopped the pending execution of a Virginia man and agreed to hear his appeal that faults his trial lawyer for a conflict of interest. The lawyer who was appointed to defend Walter Mickens, the accused killer, also was representing the murder victim on the day he died. But neither he nor the trial judge saw a potential conflict.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond ruled 7 to 3 that the defense lawyer had done a reasonable job and that was sufficient. But the high court justices said they would hear the case of Mickens vs. Taylor, 00-9285, to decide whether the inmate is entitled to a new trial.
* Turned away California prosecutors who wanted to keep secret the names of witnesses who would testify against Joaquin Alvarado, a prison gang member who is to be tried for the murder of Jose Uribe, a fellow inmate at the Los Angeles County Jail.
The 6th Amendment gives defendants the right to confront the witnesses testifying against them. But prosecutors said it should be waived in the case of a prison gang known as the Mexican Mafia.
In August, the California Supreme Court said the witnesses’ names could be withheld prior to the trial. However, defense lawyers must be given their names during the trial, the court said.
In their appeal in California vs. Alvarado, 00-1312, the state said the names should be kept secret throughout the trial, but the justices dismissed the case Monday.
