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524US2

Unit: $U96

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648

BRAGDON v. ABBOTT

Opinion of the Court

III

The petition for certiorari presented three other questions

for review. The questions stated:

“3. When deciding under title III of the ADA whether
a private health care provider must perform invasive
procedures on an infectious patient in his ofﬁce, should
courts defer to the health care provider’s professional
judgment, as long as it is reasonable in light of then-
current medical knowledge?

“4. What is the proper standard of judicial review
under title III of the ADA of a private health care pro-
vider’s judgment that the performance of certain inva-
sive procedures in his ofﬁce would pose a direct threat
to the health or safety of others?

“5. Did petitioner, Randon Bragdon, D. M. D., raise a
genuine issue of fact for trial as to whether he was war-
ranted in his judgment that the performance of certain
invasive procedures on a patient in his ofﬁce would have
posed a direct threat to the health or safety of others?”
Pet. for Cert. i.

Of these, we granted certiorari only on question three. The
question is phrased in an awkward way, for it conﬂates two
In asking whether it is appropriate to
separate inquiries.
defer to petitioner’s judgment, it assumes that petitioner’s
assessment of the objective facts was reasonable. The cen-
tral premise of the question and the assumption on which it
is based merit separate consideration.

Again, we begin with the statute. Notwithstanding the
protection given respondent by the ADA’s deﬁnition of dis-
ability, petitioner could have refused to treat her if her infec-
tious condition “pose[d] a direct threat to the health or safety
of others.”
42 U. S. C. § 12182(b)(3). The ADA deﬁnes a di-
rect threat to be “a signiﬁcant risk to the health or safety of
others that cannot be eliminated by a modiﬁcation of policies,
practices, or procedures or by the provision of auxiliary aids