Supreme Court Narrows Scope Of Federal Disabilities-Bias Law

by Robert S. Greenberger
The Wall Street Journal
June 23, 1999

WASHINGTON -- In a sweeping win for business, the Supreme Court narrowed the scope of disabilities covered under a major law that protects disabled people against unfair treatment. The subject is so far-reaching that the high court had taken the relatively unusual step of reviewing three cases involving the Americans With Disabilities Act -- all in an effort to decide who, under the ADA, is considered disabled. The answer: The law doesn't include most correctable conditions, such as eyesight problems that can be improved by eyeglasses, or ailments, such as high blood pressure or diabetes, that can be controlled with medication.

The three cases involve nearsighted twin sisters who were rejected for jobs as pilots because their uncorrected vision didn't meet UAL Corp.'s United Airlines standard; a United Parcel Service Inc. mechanic suffering from high blood pressure; and a truck driver nearly blind in one eye.

While the rulings, issued Tuesday, eased companies' fears of being required to make costly accommodations for huge numbers of people, they angered some advocates for the disabled. "These decisions by the Supreme Court fly in the face of Congress's intent in passing the ADA," complains Chai Feldblum, a law professor at Georgetown University Law Center who had helped draft the 1990 statute. "I think people with disabilities may well need to question whether we should ask Congress to revisit this issue," she adds.

There also is a middle group -- difficult to measure -- of people with disabilities who feel that a law for the disabled that covers eyeglass users may trivialize the issue. "There is a sentiment, even a growing sentiment, that the definition was already being read too broadly and perhaps even diluting the rights of those that some would refer to as the truly disabled," says Bob Herman, an attorney for the Paralyzed Veterans of America. Mr. Herman says he isn't expressing either his or his group's view.

In a separate ADA case, the high court ruled Tuesday that the law requires states to place the mentally disabled in homelike settings if they can do as well there as in state institutions. And, in another workplace case, the court made it a bit easier for workers to collect punitive damages from companies that discriminate on the basis of sex, but said an employer can't always be liable for the acts of its managers.

In the three cases that dealt with the scope of the ADA, the Clinton administration had argued in a brief that the 1990 law was meant to cover even people with disabilities that could be corrected. But the 7-2 majority in the case involving the nearsighted pilots disagreed.

"The determination of whether an individual is disabled should be made with reference to measures that mitigate the individual's impairment, including in this instance, eyeglasses and contact lenses," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote for the majority.

Substantially Limits

The ADA defines a disability as a physical or mental impairment that "substantially limits one or more of the major life activities." That definition, Justice O'Connor concluded, would not include a person whose problem is correctable.

The ADA also applies to people who are "regarded as" being disabled -- a measure designed to protect them from prejudgments about their ability to do a job. But Justice O'Connor, also writing the majority opinion in the case involving the mechanic with high blood pressure, said this section of the statute is designed to protect against general prejudice, rather than specific job standards. The mechanic, for example, had been fired because his job required him to drive trucks, but his high blood pressure prevented him from receiving a Department of Transportation health certification.

William Kilberg, an attorney with Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, says that the trio of ADA decisions "relieves business of an enormous financial threat that it would have to find ways to accommodate impairments which do not rise to the level of disabilities." The ADA requires businesses to make reasonable accommodation for disabled workers.

But, Mr. Kilberg says, "the problem arises when you open the door to allow nearly everyone to demand that the employer change the way it structures its jobs, assigns jobs, sets schedules, essentially runs its business to meet the needs of employees who are not truly disabled."

Mr. Kilberg was an attorney in the third ABA case, which pitted his client, Albertsons Inc., against the truck driver.

(Sutton and Hinton vs. United Air Lines Inc.; Murphy vs. United Parcel Service Inc.; Albertsons Inc. vs. Kirkingburg; Olmstead vs. L.C.)

In the case involving punitive damages, the court set aside a lower-court decision that said punitive awards were warranted in only the most "egregious" instances of sex discrimination. The case was filed by Carol Kolstad, a former director of government relations in the Washington office of the American Dental Association. She contended that she was passed over for a promotion in 1992 because she was a woman, and also claimed that a supervisor made sexually offensive remarks on the job site.

In her opinion, Justice O'Connor said that plaintiffs claiming sex bias don't have to show 'egregious or outrageous discrimination.' (Kolstad vs. American Dental Association)

But by a separate 5-4 vote in the same case, the justices said employers cannot be forced to pay damages for managers' discriminatory conduct if that conduct is contrary to the employers' good-faith efforts to run a bias-free workplace.

"That's a mixed bag," said Stephen Bokat, general counsel for the U.S Chamber of Commerce. "We would have much preferred that they went with the egregious standard ... half a loaf is better than none."

A federal appeals court had ruled that such punitive-damages awards, which are intended to punish or deter misconduct, are never available unless an employee can prove the employer's conduct was "egregious."

That standard is too high and is not required by a federal anti-bias law known as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the justices said Tuesday. Title VII bars employment discrimination based on race, sex, national origin and religion.

Reckless Indifference

Since 1991 the law has allowed victims of intentional discrimination to collect up to $300,000 in punitive damages if they show their employer acted with "malice or with reckless indifference" to their rights. Lower courts had split on whether that standard required employees to prove egregious misconduct by their employer.

Ms. Kolstad was the Chicago-based dental association's director of federal-agency relations in Washington when the director of legislation announced his retirement in 1992. A male co-worker got the job and Ms. Kolstad sued, saying he was chosen because of sex bias against her. She also said a supervisor told sexually offensive jokes at staff meetings and described professionally prominent women in sexually derogatory terms.

A federal court jury ruled the association discriminated against Ms. Kolstad and awarded her $52,718 in back pay. The trial judge refused to let the jury consider punitive damages and the full U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia agreed, saying she did not show her employer's conduct was egregious.

Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Thomas dissented from the part of the court's ruling that said a showing of egregious conduct was not required. But writing for the two, Justice Rehnquist said the rest of the ruling puts "a significant limitation, and in many foreseeable cases a complete bar, on employer liability for punitive damages."

Justices Rehnquist and Thomas joined Justices O'Connor, Scalia and Kennedy in ruling that employers do not always have to pay for the discriminatory acts of their managers. Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer dissented from that part of the court's ruling.