Source: https://www.williamgoren.com/blog/page/116/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 23:23:55+00:00

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Comply with the ADA, commit a felony, be sued for actual and punitive damages… Really?
It is crystal clear that under the ADA that a student in the classroom as a reasonable accommodation would have the right to tape record or otherwise record the class. See 28 C.F.R. § 35.104(2),(3). However, you may want to look at your state’s eavesdropping statute to see if there aren’t some unintended consequences of that. For example, in Illinois there is a very strict recording eavesdropping statute, which would prohibit recording a class unless everybody in the class consents. Further, violation of the statute is a felony and the person allowing and/or doing the recording may be subject to a claim for actual and punitive damages (720 ILCS 5/14-1(b),5/14-2(a)(1), 5/14-4(a), 5/14-6(a-e). There is case law in Illinois to suggest that recording in the classroom would be allowed. However, that case law was before the Illinois eavesdropping statute was amended so as to clearly take away that possibility, at least as the statute is literally written. Therefore, it is possible that a person who records or allows the recording of a class as a reasonable accommodation could be prosecuted. While it is hard to believe that a prosecutor would undertake such a prosecution, it is more within the realm of possibility that a student might sue for actual and punitive damages because the recording was made without his or her consent.
So what is the school to do? If the school does nothing, it is faced with the possibility that a professor or a person doing the recording could be prosecuted for violating the Illinois eavesdropping statute. It is also possible that the professor or person doing the recording could be sued for actual and punitive damages. What the school can do for a few different things. First, administration could make it a part of the student contract with the school that says as a condition of taking any particular class, the student hereby consents that the class may be recorded for a variety of reasons, including as a reasonable accommodation to persons with disabilities. The other approach would be for each instructor to put in their syllabi that the student by taking the class consents to recording. The problem with the latter approach is that not all professors are amenable to the class being recorded. Whereas, if it comes down from administration, then the individual teacher probably doesn’t have a choice. Finally, it probably makes the most sense if the legislature would just amend the law so as to allow recording in a class room or to exempt such activity from the reach of the law. In short, Illinois eavesdropping statute is very unusual, but you may want to check your own eavesdropping statute to see if there is not a potential problem there.
Since the changes are so radical between the Americans with Disabilities Act and the ADAAA in many ways, a question comes up as to whether those changes are retroactive to pending ADA cases where the facts occurred entirely before January of 2009. There are two U.S. Supreme Court cases out there that strongly suggest that the answer is no. Those cases are Landgraf v. USF Film Products, 511 U.S. 244 (1994) and Rivers v. Roadway Express Inc., 511 U.S. 298 (1994). In those cases, the United States Supreme Court said that statutes are not going to be retroactive unless Congress manifests a very clear intent to do so. Furthermore, Congress overruling judicial interpretation of a statute is also not going to be retroactive absent that same very clear intent. With respect to the ADAAA, you have a situation where Congress overruled judicial interpretation of the statute. Rivers strongly suggests that the ADAAA would not be retroactive since that clear intent is absent from the ADAAA. It isn’t even a close call and in fact case law as well as the EEOC in their final regulations have said that the ADAAA is not retroactive.
That brings us to the case of Hilton v. Wright, _ F.3d _, 2012 WL 752546 (Second Cir. March 9, 2012). In this case, Hilton, a former state prisoner infected with hepatitis C, sued the Associate Commissioner and Chief Medical Officer for the New York State Department correctional services as well as the New York State Department of correctional services for disability discrimination in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act alleging that an eligibility requirement for receiving hepatitis C treatment was without medical justification and unlawfully screened out former drug users that were in recovery. He also alleged violation of the eighth amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. The court remanded for further proceedings whether the eighth amendment was violated and whether sovereign immunity, under the 11th amendment, prevented the suit from going forward.
However, our concern is with Second Circuit’s analysis of the Americans with Disabilities Act. What is interesting about this case is that there appears to be nothing in the facts themselves to suggest that any of the facts occurred after January 1, 2009. Nevertheless, the court appeared to say that the lower court on remand only needed to consider whether the defendants regarded the plaintiff as having a mental or physical impairment and not evidence of how or to what degree the defendant believed the impairment affected the plaintiff (the ADAAA standards and not the standard prior to the ADAAA). All of this without extended analysis as to whether the ADA is retroactive (i.e., for example, no citation or discussion of the cases mentioned at the top of this blog entry).
All this said, did they really hold that the ADAAA is retroactive? It is hard to say. First, as mentioned previously, there is no extended analysis of Landgraf or Rivers. Second, the court in a footnote referred to current Department of Justice regulations that say a person could be regarded as having a disability if they were treated by a public entity as having a drug addiction but in fact did not. Third, the Second Circuit also told the lower court that they had to consider whether the defendant’s actions violated the eighth amendment and whether sovereign immunity prevented a lawsuit from going forward. In short, there are lots of possibilities on remand for the court to consider without having to deal with the issue of whether the ADA is retroactive.
This will be an interesting case to follow. To my knowledge, all of the cases to date with the exception of one for injunctive relief (this is a case for damages), have held that the ADAAA is not retroactive. The possible eighth amendment, cruel and unusual punishment claim, and 11th amendment sovereign immunity questions also bear watching.
Yesterday, in EEOC v. United Airlines, Incorporated, (docket number 11-1774, March 7, 2012 (Seventh Circuit)), the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit came down with a decision saying that United Air Lines was under no obligation to guarantee a reassignment to a vacant position for an employee that could no longer do the job they were currently in because of a disability, but could with or without reasonable accommodation do the job of a vacant position. The Seventh Circuit relied upon a prior case from 2000, EEOC v. Humiston-Keeling, Inc. 227 F.3d 1024 (7th Cir. 2000) saying that the Americans With Disabilities Act was not violated where the company had a competitive transfer policy.
Thus, the question becomes what did United States Airways Inc. v. Barnett have to say about whether an assignment of a person with a disability to another position is something mandated by the Americans with Disabilities Act. The problem is that United States Airways Inc. v. Barnett is all over the place with respect to whether an employer with a seniority system has the obligation to reassign a person with a disability to another position they are otherwise qualified to do within the company. Depending upon which opinion you read in Barnett you get different answers. For example, Justice Breyer’s opinion in which Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice Stevens, Justice O’Connor and Justice Kennedy joined said that it would be a very unusual set of circumstances that would require an employer to override a seniority system and mandate that the employer transfer an individual with a disability to another position that they could perform with or without reasonable accommodations. It is not clear how the majority view applies to this case being discussed here since nothing in EEOC v. United Airlines indicates that a seniority system is involved.
Justice O’Connor and Justice Scalia have opinions that are a bit broader in scope than the majority opinion. Justice O’Connor’s concurring opinion with respect to determining when in her opinion an employer would have the obligation to reassign a person with a disability to a position that they could do with or without reasonable accommodation, focused upon whether that position was vacant. That is, if a position was vacant, a position which no employee currently worked in and to which no individual had a legal entitlement, then to Justice O’Connor the employer would have the obligation despite a seniority system to reasonably accommodate the person with a disability by the transfer. Therefore, application of this rule to the case being discussed here would result in the person with the disability being able to transfer into that position as a matter of right, assuming that position was vacant.
Justice Scalia’s dissenting opinion in which Justice Thomas joined has another view on the matter. In his dissenting opinion he said that the Americans with Disabilities Act envisions the elimination of the obstacle of the current position when there was an alternate position freely available. That is, if the person with a disability was qualified for the position he or she was seeking reassignment to and no one else was seeking it or no one else seeking it was better qualified, then the Americans with Disabilities Act demanded that the person with the disability be given that position. In other words, an employer does not have to reassign a person with a disability to an open position if another person has superior qualifications to the person with a disability. In short, if Justice Scalia’s view prevails, then United Air Lines competitive transfer policy, which gives a preference but not an entitlement to the person with a disability would be upheld.
I just heard a CLE (6/18/ 2012) where an EEOC commissioner said that it was their view that a person with a disability seeking reassignment who was otherwise qualified would not have to compete for a job if the job was equal to or lower than their current job. We will see if the courts go along with this.
So where does this leave things. It really comes down to whether at some point the United States Supreme Court adopts the view of Justice O’Connor, no longer on the court, or Justice Scalia, which justice Thomas joined. I long ago gave up predicting how the United States Supreme Court might rule on a matter involving the Americans with Disabilities Act. As a matter of preventive law and good employee relations, Justice O’Connor’s approach bears serious consideration. That said, there is something intuitive about Justice Scalia’s view and considering the changes in the United States Supreme Court, his view could well prevail, though one never knows.

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