Source: https://www.floridabar.org/the-florida-bar-journal/the-proverbial-get-out-of-jail-free-card-the-ninth-circuits-treatment-of-addiction-under-hernandez-v-hughes-missile-systems-co/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 22:31:21+00:00

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The Proverbial “Get Out of Jail Free” Card – The Ninth Circuit’s Treatment of Addiction Under Hernandez v. Hughes Missile Systems Co.
An employer refuses to rehire a former employee who was given the opportunity and voluntarily chose to resign in lieu of being terminated for undisputedly testing positive for cocaine use while at work. The employer makes the decision not to rehire pursuant to a corporate policy that uniformly prohibits the rehiring of employees who have been terminated or who have resigned in lieu of termination because they violated a company rule or regulation. There is no factual dispute that the corporate reemployment policy has been uniformly applied to all former employees or that this particular former employee was correctly and legally required to resign in lieu of termination.
However, because this particular employee happens to have suffered from an addiction, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has concluded that he has the right to sue his former employer for discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act arising from the decision not to rehire him. How the Ninth Circuit reached this somewhat remarkable conclusion in Hernandez v. Hughes Missile Systems Company, 2002 WL 1275603 (9th Cir. 2002), requires further explanation.
The employee, Joel Hernandez, worked as a calibration service technician for Hughes Missile Systems Company (“Hughes”). While at work, Hernandez was given a drug test that yielded positive results for cocaine use. He was given the option to resign in lieu of being terminated, which he chose to do.1 There was no evidence that Hernandez was coerced to resign or that his resignation in lieu of termination was in any way unlawful. In fact, Hernandez neither challenged the legality of his resignation nor questioned the finding that he was using illegal drugs.
(4) may hold an employee who engages in the illegal use of drugs to the same qualification standards for employment or job performance and behavior that such entity holds other employees, even if any unsatisfactory performance or behavior is related to the drug use. . . of such employee. . . .
The court then went on to analyze Hughes’ argument that it had a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for refusing to rehire Hernandez, namely, that he had previously been forced to resign for misconduct involving drug use in violation of corporate policy and that the company simply did not rehire any such employee, regardless of the existence or nonexistence of a disability. It is here that the Ninth Circuit’s decision most strikingly flies in the face of clear statutory mandates.
Rather than engage in the full shifting burdens analysis mandated by Supreme Court precedent,11 the Ninth Circuit abridged the analysis by never reaching the question of whether Hernandez had come forward with evidence to establish that Hughes’ proffered explanation was pretextual.12 Instead, the court concluded, as a matter of law, that Hughes’ neutral policy prohibiting the rehire of any former employee who had resigned or been terminated because of violating company policy was not a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the refusal to rehire.13 It reached this conclusion after noting that even though Hughes’ policy was not “unlawful on its face,” it “violate[d] the ADA as applied to former drug addicts whose only work-related offense was testing positive because of their addiction.”14 The court reached this remarkable conclusion even though it affirmed summary judgment on Hernandez’s disparate impact claim on the grounds that it was untimely filed.15 Since there was no evidence of disparate treatment in Hughes’ application of its rehiring policy, and the disparate impact claim was correctly dismissed, one must query how the court was able to sustain a claim of discrimination at all.
The Ninth Circuit’s conclusion regarding Hughes’ proffered reason for not rehiring Hernandez is directly contrary to the clear language of the ADA and produces the most absurd results in the workplace, not the least of which is that it immunizes individuals with purported addictions from the effects of their uncontroverted past misconduct.
Section 12114(c) specifically and unequivocally provides that an employer may hold an employee (or, by implication, former employee) who engages in the use of illegal drugs to the same “qualification standards for employment” that the employer holds others “even if any unsatisfactory performance or behavior is related to the drug use. . . of such employee.” Consequently, under this statutory provision, Hughes was entitled to hold Hernandez to the same qualification standard that it applied to all other former employees who might be seeking reemployment, even if Hernandez’s drug addiction was the cause of the earlier violation of Hughes’ regulations. The Ninth Circuit did not discuss this particular statutory provision as part of its analysis.
The consequences of the Ninth Circuit’s analysis in Hernandez are draconian from an employer’s perspective since the court’s decision, as previously noted, effectively immunizes a rehabilitated drug addict or alcoholic from the consequences of his prior misconduct. There is little analytical difference between the situation presented in Hernandez and the hypothetical situation where Hernandez might have stolen money from Hughes primarily because of and to feed his drug addiction. While there is something of a substantive difference between these two violations of corporate policy, both would be acts of misconduct caused by the addiction. Would Hughes be precluded from enforcing its policy of refusing to rehire Hernandez for that particular past violation? If so, would the same result obtain if Hernandez had physically assaulted another employee while under the influence of drugs?
The Ninth Circuit appears to struggle with the “safe harbor” provision of §12114(b) and the protections it affords individuals with addictions. However, it is certainly the more reasonable reading of §12114(b) to suggest that it protects individuals from being discriminated against on the basis of their status or record of addiction, and not that it provides some form of special dispensation which absolves the individual of all past drug-related misconduct.
Remarkably, the Eleventh Circuit has not had occasion to interpret §12114 and how the protections afforded to addict and employer under subparagraphs (b) and (c) thereof interact with each other. However, the Eleventh Circuit has given some indication of how it might rule when presented with the issue.
The Ninth Circuit has unnecessarily chosen to interpret the safe harbor provision in §12114(b) in a manner that creates a proverbial “get out of jail free card” for individuals with addictions and injects an element of preferential treatment into an employer’s consideration of individuals with addictions. Such an interpretation impermissibly rewrites the safe harbor provision to provide far greater protection for individuals with addictions than Congress originally intended. As a result, it would not be surprising if the Eleventh Circuit declined to follow the reasoning in Hernandez.
1 Hernandez, 2002 WL 1275603 at *1.
2 Nowhere in the court’s opinion is there any indication that Hernandez premised his ADA claim on the basis of an actual addiction either to drugs or alcohol. In fact, the court observed that “Hernandez does not claim that he was actually disabled at the time he applied to be rehired.” Id. at *2.
5 Id. at *2. It was undisputed that Hughes had a corporate policy prohibiting drug use and mandating termination for any employee who tested positive for drugs. Id.
6 Id. Under the ADA, a “disability” may include, in addition to an existing physical or mental impairment, the record of such an impairment. 42 U.S.C. §12102(2).
7 Hernandez, 2002 WL 1275603 at *1, *2 (emphasis supplied). It requires little jurisprudential support to recognize that not every drug user is an addict and that not every addict uses drugs in violation of his employer’s policies. In fact, the court acknowledged that not all drug users are entitled to protection under the ADA, since their drug use may not rise to the level of addiction. Id. at *2 n.9.
8 Id. at *3, citing to 42 U.S.C. §12114(a) (2002).
9 The cases are legion that uphold the right of an employer to treat a current drug user the same as any other employee caught in wrongdoing regardless of the employee’s addiction. See, e.g., Nielsen v. Moroni Feed Co., 162 F.3d 604 (10th Cir. 1998); Salley v. Circuit City Stores, Inc., 160 F.3d 977 (3d Cir. 1998); Burch v. Coca-Cola Co., 119 F.3d 305 (5th Cir. 1997), cert. den., 522 U.S. 1084 (1998); Shafer v. Preston Memorial Hosp. Corp., 107 F.3d 274 (4th Cir. 1997); Maddox v. University of Tennessee, 62 F.3d 843 (6th Cir. 1995). Even the Ninth Circuit has reached a similar conclusion. See Collings v. Longview Fibre Co., 63 F.3d 828 (9th Cir. 1995), cert. den., 516 U.S. 1048 (1999) (distinguishing between termination based on drug-related misconduct and one based on drug addiction disability).
10 Hernandez, 2002 WL 1275603 at *2. The court also concluded that a factual dispute existed as to whether Hernandez was a “qualified individual who could perform the essential functions of the job.” Id. at *2, 3. Hughes apparently never proffered the argument (or if it did, the court ignored it) that a legitimate qualification for rehire of former employees included not having previously violated a corporate rule or regulation.
11 Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Products, Inc., 530 U.S. 133 (2000), citing to McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802 (1973).
12 This is perhaps not surprising since the opinion does not reflect that there was any evidence 1) that Hughes had ever deviated from its corporate policy of not rehiring former employees who violated company rules or regulations, 2) that the policy had been applied to Hernandez in a discriminatory manner, or 3) that Hughes was not, in fact, motivated by the policy in making its decision.
13 Hughes Missile Systems, 2002 WL 1275603 at *4.
15 Id. at *4 n.19.
18 In fact, it is a generally recognized principle of recovery from addiction that the individual in recovery must acknowledge that he remains an addict and will likely always be an addict, i.e., he will always have the propensity to develop a dependency on drugs. See, e.g., Stanton Peele, The Results for Drug Reform Goals of Shifting from Interdiction/Punishment to Treatment, 9 Int’l J. of Drug Policy 43, 49 (1998) (observing that the “disease” model of addiction requires the addict to always think of himself as an addict). As a result, a rehabilitated addict entitled to the protections afforded by §12114(b) would still suffer from drug “addiction” even though he may not currently use drugs. Such an individual would be able to work for Hughes without violating its corporate regulations against drug use.
19 Collings, 63 F.3d at 832-33.
20 Thomas, 934 F. Supp. at 773-74.
22 Peyton.72 F. Supp. at 920-21.
23 Under the McDonnell Douglas shifting burdens analysis, once Hughes had come forward with a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for not rehiring Hernandez (the corporate rehiring policy), it would have been incumbent upon Hernandez to present evidence of pretext to call Hughes’ explanation into question. Reeves, 530 U.S. at 143. Of course, because there would have been no dispute about the illegality of Hernandez’s conduct during his prior employment, there would have been no evidence of pretext and summary judgment would have been correctly granted in favor of Hughes.
24 See, e.g., Reid v. Heil Co., 206 F.3d 1055, 1061 (11th Cir. 2000).
25 Isenbergh v. Knight-Ridder Newspaper Sales, Inc., 97 F.3d 436, 444 (11th Cir. 1996), citing to Brown v. American Honda Motor Co., 939 F.2d 946, 952-54 (11th Cir. 1991) (plaintiff presented no jury question because defendant’s ultimate justification went essentially unchallenged).
27 Terrell, 132 F.3d at 627.
Edward Guedes is a shareholder with the firm of Weiss Serota Helfman Pastoriza & Guedes, P.A., and heads its appellate practice group. In that context and previously as a trial lawyer, Mr. Guedes has also developed extensive expertise in employment matters. He received his juris doctor from Harvard Law School.
This column is submitted on behalf of the Labor and Employment Law Section, Courtney B. Wilson, chair, and Stuart A. Rosenfeldt, editor.

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