New England Biz Law Update
A schizophrenic employee who was removed from his job despite medical evaluations pronouncing him fit to work could sue his employer pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.
A U.S. District Court judge had dismissed the complaint after concluding that the employee failed to allege facts showing that he was disabled within the meaning of the ADA.
But the 1st Circuit vacated the dismissal order, finding that the complaint plausibly depicted discrimination based on the employer’s perception that the employee was disabled.
“[The plaintiff employee] has … passed ‘the line between possibility and plausibility’ in asserting a regarded-as violation of the ADA,” Judge Kermit V. Lipez wrote for the unanimous 1st Circuit panel. “Here, the pleaded facts support ‘[a] plausible but inconclusive inference’ of discrimination based on disability, … and [the plaintiff] is therefore entitled to proceed with his ADA claim.”
The 1st Circuit went on to rule, however, that he could not sue his two supervisors pursuant to the same statute.
“On an issue of first impression for our circuit, we conclude that Title I of the ADA does not provide for liability against individuals who are not themselves employers,” Lipez wrote.
The 19-page decision is Román-Oliveras, et al. v. Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA), et al.
Medical history
The plaintiff, Héctor Luis Román-Oliveras, worked successfully for defendant Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority for 22 years while receiving regular psychiatric treatment for schizophrenia. The condition had been diagnosed more than 30 years earlier.
On March 1, 2006, the defendant barred the plaintiff from working until he was evaluated by a psychiatrist. On April 24, the social worker received the psychiatric report, which stated that the plaintiff could resume his duties. The plaintiff, however, remained out of work, involuntarily, despite the satisfactory report.
On Aug. 7 of that year, the defendant’s physician ordered “asbestos[] medical evaluations” of the plaintiff. The resulting report stated that the plaintiff was “fit for duties including as per his psychiatric condition.”
The plaintiff also was asked for the evaluations of his private doctors. In January 2007, he submitted the requested medical certification from his psychiatrist.
Despite findings by “[a]ll of the doctors” that the plaintiff was capable of resuming his work, the employer refused to allow him to do so.
The plaintiff’s subsequent federal court complaint was dismissed. The judge rejected the plaintiff’s “regarded as” claim on the ground that he had “failed to allege facts sufficient to show that defendants ever regarded Román’s schizophrenia as having a substantial impact on his work.”
‘Regarded-as’ claim
To prove a regarded as claim against an employer, a plaintiff ordinarily must show either that the employer (1) “mistakenly believes that [he] has a physical impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities,” or (2) “mistakenly believes that an actual, nonlimiting impairment substantially limits one or more major life activities.” The 1st Circuit focused on the second of those alternatives.
“According to the allegations in the complaint, Román was removed from his position and forced to undergo multiple medical evaluations at the behest of the defendants, and also was required to submit a medical certification from his treating psychiatrist,” Lipez said. “Despite favorable test results each time, defendants persisted in refusing to allow Román to work.”
The judge added: “Taken as true, these allegations, together with the allegation that Román always performed his job well, readily support three pertinent inferences: (1) defendants mistakenly believed that Román’s psychiatric condition substantially limited his ability to do his job; (2) they refused to let him work based on that erroneous, discriminatory judgment; and (3) they repeatedly attempted to justify removing him from his job through the psychiatric and other medical testing.”
The plaintiff was required under the statute to show that the employer regarded him as substantially impaired in either a class of jobs or a broad range of jobs in various classes as compared with the average person having comparable training, skills and abilities, Lipez said.
“Although the complaint does not explicitly assert that PREPA had such a broad perception of Román’s incapacity, the allegations are sufficient to embrace that contention,” Lipez wrote. “In any event, given that the disability at issue is a mental condition rather than a discrete physical limitation, defendants’ actions in removing Román and repeatedly demanding psychiatric evaluations permit the inference that defendants deemed him disqualified from a broad range of jobs.”
No individual liability
The co-defendant supervisors, while acknowledging that neither the 1st Circuit nor the Supreme Court has explicitly rejected individual liability under the ADA, pointed out that a number of other circuits have taken that view. They also asserted that such a conclusion is the logical extension of the 1st Circuit’s 2009 holding in Fantini v. Salem State College that Title VII, an analogous statute, does not support personal capacity claims.
“We see no basis for reaching a different outcome under Title I of the ADA,” Lipez responded.
“Indeed, given the parallel statutory language and the identical 1991 amendment to the statutes’ remedial provisions, we think it apparent that Congress intended that these two employment discrimination provisions be treated uniformly.”
