Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
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Cite as: 524 U. S. 624 (1998)

649

Opinion of the Court

or services.”
ployment provisions of Title I.

Ibid. Parallel provisions appear in the em-

§§ 12111(3), 12113(b).

The ADA’s direct threat provision stems from the recogni-
tion in School Bd. of Nassau Cty. v. Arline, 480 U. S. 273,
287 (1987), of the importance of prohibiting discrimination
against individuals with disabilities while protecting others
from signiﬁcant health and safety risks, resulting, for in-
stance, from a contagious disease.
In Arline, the Court rec-
onciled these objectives by construing the Rehabilitation Act
not to require the hiring of a person who posed “a signiﬁcant
risk of communicating an infectious disease to others.”
Id.,
at 287, n. 16. Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act and
the Fair Housing Act to incorporate the language. See 29
U. S. C. § 706(8)(D) (excluding individuals who “would consti-
tute a direct threat to the health or safety of other individu-
als”); 42 U. S. C. § 3604(f)(9) (same).
It later relied on the
same language in enacting the ADA. See 28 CFR pt. 36,
App. B, p. 626 (1997) (ADA’s direct threat provision codiﬁes
Arline). Because few, if any, activities in life are risk free,
Arline and the ADA do not ask whether a risk exists, but
whether it is signiﬁcant. Arline, supra, at 287, and n. 16; 42
U. S. C. § 12182(b)(3).

The existence, or nonexistence, of a signiﬁcant risk must
be determined from the standpoint of the person who refuses
the treatment or accommodation, and the risk assessment
must be based on medical or other objective evidence. Ar-
line, supra, at 288; 28 CFR § 36.208(c) (1997); id., pt. 36, App.
B, p. 626. As a health care professional, petitioner had the
duty to assess the risk of infection based on the objective,
scientiﬁc information available to him and others in his pro-
fession. His belief that a signiﬁcant risk existed, even if
maintained in good faith, would not relieve him from liability.
To use the words of the question presented, petitioner re-
ceives no special deference simply because he is a health care
professional.
It is true that Arline reserved “the question
whether courts should also defer to the reasonable medical