Opinion ID: 3011078
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: A Limited Reasonability Defense

Text: Because the ADA imposes extensive requirements on employers and covers a broad range of conditions, new puzzles seem to arise from every case. Deane announced our conclusion that employer mistakes can lead to regarded as liability. The question then becomes: What limits, if any, are there to this principle? There are no clear answers in our precedent, the statute, the legislative history, or the EEOC's interpretive guidelines. We must, 19 however, answer the question to resolve this case. We believe that guidance can be found in the general logic of the ADA, which requires an interactive relationship between employer and employee, and concomitantly requires an individualized evaluation of employees' impairments. See Taylor v. Phoenixville Sch. Dist., No. 98-1273, ___ F.3d ___, 1999 WL 184138 (3d Cir. Apr. 5, 1999).6 While prejudice is not required for a successfulregarded as claim, we recognize that the ADA has as a major purpose the protection of individuals who are subject to stereotypes about their abilities. An employer who regards a kind of impairment--epilepsy, for example--as disqualifying all people affected by the impairment for a wide range of jobs is thus not entitled to a defense of reasonable mistake; under the ADA, it is the employer's burden to educate itself about the varying nature of impairments and to make individualized determinations about affected employees. However, there is no evidence in this case that Pathmark decisionmakers were infected with stereotypes or prejudice against the disabled. In situations such as this one, which do not involve prejudice, we think that a limited defense best serves the aims of the ADA: If the employer is factually mistaken about the extent of an employee's impairment, and the employee or his agent is responsible for the mistake, the employer is not liable under the ADA.7 _________________________________________________________________ 6. We are also influenced by the Supreme Court's decisions in Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775 (1998), and Burlington Industries, Inc. v. Ellerth, 524 U.S. 742 (1998). In those cases, the Court determined that general principles of agency law justified imposing Title VII liability on employers for sexual harassment committed by supervisors, but defined an affirmative defense to liability in order to give employers incentives to create effective anti-harassment programs. The details of the defense were dictated by concerns for logic and equity, not by Title VII's explicit provisions. We take the same path here. 7. We note that it will not always be immediately clear whether a particular physician is an employee's agent. For example, whereas in Delaware, a worker seeking workers' compensation has a right to select an independent physician, see 19 Del. Code Ann. S 2323 (1998), the Pennsylvania Workers' Compensation Act allows an employer to establish a list of designated physicians or health care providers, and an 20 We emphasize that it is not reasonable for an employer to extrapolate from information provided by an employee based on stereotypes or fears about the disabled, and we think that the distinction between the effects of a type of impairment and an impairment's extent adequately captures the distinction: A belief that anyone with bipolar disorder or HIV infection is substantially limited in a major life activity is a conclusion about the effects of the impairment and only secondarily about the particular employee. An employer with such a belief is failing to make an individualized determination, as the ADA requires, and thus acts at its peril. If an employer believes that a perceived disability inherently precludes successful performance of the essential functions of a job, with or without accommodation, the employer must be correct about the affected employee's ability to perform the job in order to avoid liability; there is no defense of reasonable mistake. Any other outcome would defeat the ADA's attempt to eradicate what may be deeply rooted and seemingly rational presumptions about the abilities of the disabled. By contrast, a mistake about the extent of a particular employee's impairment made in the course of an individualized determination is further from the core of the ADA's concern, and a reasonability defense adequately protects employees' interests in not being erroneously regarded as disabled. We reaffirm that an employer is liable for mistakenly regarding an employee as disabled, unless the employer's perception is based on the employee's _________________________________________________________________ employee may be required to visit one of those on the list in order to maintain a workers' compensation claim, see 77 Pa. Stat. Ann. S 531(1)(I) (1998). An employer's employment, ownership, or control of such physicians or health care providers must be disclosed in order for them to be placed on the list. Even if the providers on the list are independent, if the employer designates them and relies on their judgments, the onus may well be on the employer, rather than the employee, to correct their mistakes. It is also possible that the list will consist of independent providers negotiated by the employees' labor union and the employer. See 77 Pa. Stat. Ann. S 1000.6(a)(3) (1998). We express no opinion on all these agency issues, which are not present here and will have to be resolved on a case-by-case basis. 21 unreasonable actions or omissions. The limited exception to liability for mistakes can be expressed as follows: If an employer regards a plaintiff as disabled based on a mistake in an individualized determination of the employee's actual condition rather than on a belief about the effects of the kind of impairment the employer regarded the employee as having, then the employer will have a defense if the employee unreasonably failed to inform the employer of the actual situation.8 This rule is consistent with our decision in Deane, in which we emphasized the employer's failure to take reasonable steps to learn the true extent of the plaintiff 's impairment. See Deane, 142 F.3d at 145. In Deane, we found a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the plaintiff had been perceived as disabled where the record documented confusion among the relevant decisionmakers as to the extent of the plaintiff 's physical impairment. See Deane, 142 F.3d at 145. Pathmark attempts to distinguish Deane by noting that the defendants in that case relied on a short phone conversation with the plaintiff to conclude that she could not perform any available job. The Deane court noted that the defendants did not evaluate the plaintiff, contact her physician, or independently review her medical records, but relied on one phone conversation with her. See Deane, 142 F.3d at 145. By contrast, Pathmark relied on Dr. Moore's medical report. The Deane facts do not define the outer limits of liability. Pathmark apparently made a significant error in treating _________________________________________________________________ 8. We recognize that there is a continuum of perceptions and that there will be difficult cases, but we think that our formulation provides appropriate guidance. For example, an employer who is informed that a particular individual has epilepsy might overestimate the limiting effects of that individual's epilepsy because of a general perception about the severity of epilepsy. If the employer mistakenly overestimates the degree of a person's impairment based on perceptions about the nature of the impairment, it is not basing its decision on an individualized evaluation. Moreover, the employer's defense would fail in such a case because the employee would have done nothing unreasonable in informing the employer of her condition. The employer should seek further specific information about the extent of the employee's impairment before it concludes that the employee is disabled. 22 Taylor's temporary restrictions as permanent. Taylor also offered evidence that Pathmark did not engage in a process of communication and cooperation, as we counseled employers to do in Deane. See id. at 149.9 Additionally, Pathmark argues that Taylor acted unreasonably under the circumstances: He waited until after the ADA Committee made its decision to have his doctor submit a new report. However, Taylor did not know until the May letter that Pathmark considered him permanently unable to work, and he did communicate with Pathmark in December 1995, approximately five months before he was fired, about his reduced restrictions. While Pathmark argues that Taylor bears the lion's share of responsibility for any miscommunication that occurred, there is evidence to the contrary. Taylor appears to have consistently sought reinstatement. Pathmark's own electronic mail suggests that his saga includedglitches. Pathmark waited approximately seven months after the ADA Committee considered his case to send him notice that he was terminated, apparently because of an oftenpostponed meeting of counsel. The ADA Committee itself did not meet on Taylor's case for one year after Pathmark's doctor last examined him, which constitutes a significant delay. Moreover, the record reflects that an outside consultant advised Pathmark that sharp disparities between Taylor's self-report and Dr. Moore's evaluation led her to strongly advise that an attempt be made to resolve the discrepancies. While there are no fixed rules for what an ADA plaintiff must do to correct an employer's expressed misperception, we think that a jury could find that Taylor did not act unreasonably in these circumstances and that Pathmark was responsible for the misunderstanding. Reasonability is _________________________________________________________________ 9. Pathmark also seeks to distinguish Deane by noting that there was a factual dispute in that case as to whether lifting was an essential function of the job, and there is no such dispute here. But that question goes to a totally different element of the plaintiff 's case, which is whether the plaintiff is qualified to perform the essential functions of the job. Taylor is not saying that Pathmark was wrong about the job description; he is arguing that Pathmark was wrong about him, at least after December 1995. 23 a fact-specific test, and, of course, the employee must have reason to know of the basis of the employer's decision before he can unreasonably fail to correct a mistake. This rule will encourage communication between employer and employee, in the same way that the interactive process for determining reasonable accommodations does. See Taylor, ___ F.3d at ___ (discussing the requirements of the interactive process).