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 Disability Protections Application to People with HIV/AIDS Could Prove Disastrous Definitions Eroded Under the Americans with Disabilities Act |
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Compiled by GayToday Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund
"The Supreme Court has managed to make the definition of disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act an ever smaller moving target, one that is moving farther from what Congress intended and what common sense would dictate in determining the scope of the law's protections." The 9-0 decision Tuesday overturns an earlier victory for a Kentucky auto worker with severe carpal tunnel syndrome who challenged Toyota's refusal to accommodate her disability.
Application of the Court's reasoning to a person with HIV could leave many without a viable legal remedy for a wide range of discriminatory exclusions from work and social activities. For example, an adolescent newly diagnosed with HIV whose "central" life activities remain largely unaffected could face insurmountable difficulties passing the court's disability test, particularly since the major life activity the Court has recognized to date as affected by HIV, reproduction, may not be considered sufficiently "major" for a young person by the Court's conservative members. "What type of evidence will the Court require in order to show that a 'central life activity' of an adolescent with HIV has been impaired when the kid is thrown out of a summer camp? This decision just increases the burden on people with HIV who want to challenge discriminatory treatment in court," Hanssens added. Lambda Legal Director Ruth E. Harlow observed, "The High Court's reading of the ADA, in which the inability to do tasks associated with lifting one's arms is rendered too unimportant to be a covered 'major life activity,' has produced a result in which an employee who is afflicted with severe carpal tunnel syndrome as a result of her assembly line job is considered too disabled to keep her job but not disabled enough to be covered by the ADA." Toyota was battling Williams, a former employee who developed carpal tunnel syndrome and tendinitis after working many years on one of the corporation's assembly lines. When Williams could no longer do work that required keeping her arms raised for extended periods of time, Toyota initially complied with the ADA and reassigned her. However, Toyota later added tasks to her job that eventually rendered her unable to work, at which point Toyota fired her. Lambda was part of the legal team that submitted an amicus brief on behalf of a dozen disability rights organizations, including the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. The brief was drafted by John Rich of Shea and Gardner in Washington, D.C. Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky, Inc. v. Williams, No. 00-1089 |
