Opinion ID: 1382539
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Hospital's Claim of Instructional Error

Text: The Hospital's first argument is that the circuit judge erroneously refused to instruct the jury correctly as to matters of law that were contained in instructions proposed by the Hospital. In addressing this issue, we begin by quoting the portion of the circuit court's charge to the jury that instructed them as to the applicable law of disability discrimination: Now, the law, in the form of the West Virginia Human Rights Act, makes it unlawful for any employer to discriminate against an individual with respect to terms, conditions, or privileges of employment if the individual is able and competent to perform the services required.       Under the law of this State, a disabled person is one who, one, has a mental or physical impairment which substantially limits one or more of such person's major life activities. The term major life activities includes functions such as caring for one's self, performing manual tasks, walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, learning and working; two, has a record of such impairment; or three, is regarded or perceived as having such an impairment. Regarded or perceived as having an impairment means that the Plaintiff Ira Stone either: one, has a physical or mental impairment that does not substantially limit major life activities, but is treated by the Defendants has having such a limitation; two, has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits major life activities only as the result of the attitudes of the Defendants towards such impairment; or three, has none of the impairments defined above, but is treated by the defendants as if he had such an impairment. The employment discrimination claim of Ira Stone against St. Joseph Hospital, Cass Palmer, and Jackie Scott is directed only toward alleged discrimination on the basis of a perceived disability. Therefore, even if you may disagree with the actions of the Defendants or feel such actions were unfair, that alone is not a sufficient legal basis to find in favor of Stone and against the Hospital and Palmer and Scott.       Accordingly, even if you believe, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the Plaintiff Ira Timothy Stone is entitled to recover in this case, on this disability discrimination claim, you may not award him such damages unless you believe, from a preponderance of the evidence, that he has suffered such damages as a direct and proximate result of disability discrimination, as I have explained it to you. This was by any measure a bare-bones charge on the core legal issues of the case  although that fact alone does not make the charge erroneous. In fact, we have stated that in discrimination cases like the instant one, jury instructions should be written to convey clearly for the lay person the operation of discrimination and should avoid obscuring the forest of discrimination with the trees[.] Barlow v. Hester Industries, Inc., 198 W.Va. 118, 135, 479 S.E.2d 628, 645 (1996). The Hospital submitted and the circuit court refused to give proposed instructions that, inter alia, contained the following language: [1] [A]n employer may require an employee to submit to a medical examination and make inquiries of an employee as to whether such employee has a disability if such examination or inquiry is job related and consistent with business necessity. [2] [T]he mere fact that an employer placed an employee on light duty ... does not establish a regarded as [disability] claim. The first of these proposed instructions is directly supported by West Virginia Code of State Regulations, 77-1-5.5 [1994], issued pursuant to the anti-disability-discrimination provisions of our Human Rights Act, W.Va. Code, 5-11-9 [1998]. [8] 77-1-5.5 states in pertinent part: After commencement of employee's employment duties, an employer shall not require a medical examination and shall not make inquiries of an employee as to whether such employee has a disability or as to the nature and severity of the disability, unless: 5.5.1. Such examination or inquiry is shown to be job related and consistent with business necessity.... [9] Thus, based on the clear language from the regulations that implement the Act, the West Virginia Human Rights Act, W.Va. Code, 5-11-9 [1998], requires that after commencement of an employee's employment duties, an employer shall not require an employee to submit to any medical examination, excepting tests for illegal drugs and voluntary examinations including histories which are part of an employee health program available to employees at that work site; and an employer shall not make inquiries of an employee as to whether such employee has a disability or as to the nature and severity of the disability  unless such examination or inquiry is job-related and consistent with business necessity. This Court has recognized the right of an employer to protect employees, the public, and the workplace from danger or injury that might occur as a result of a person's possible impairments, when such protection is done in a fashion that is consistent with the duty of reasonable accommodation. We stated in Syllabus Points 2 and 3 of Davidson v. Shoney's Big Boy Restaurant, 181 W.Va. 65, 380 S.E.2d 232 (1989): 2. In deciding whether an employee poses a risk to her personal safety [so as to permit an adverse employment action regarding a person with a disability based on such a risk], the employer must show a reasonable probability of a materially enhanced risk of substantial harm to the employee based on a consideration of the job requirements in light of the employee's handicap, and the employee's work and medical history. 3. As a general rule, to satisfy the standard of a serious threat to one's health or safety, the employer must establish that it relied upon competent medical advice that there exists a reasonably probable risk of serious harm. Based on the right and duty of an employer to establish and maintain both a safe and non-discriminatory workplace, it seems clear to us that an employer may require an employee to work under temporary precautionary employment conditions and limitations, such as a light duty assignment, pending the results of an otherwise permissible inquiry or medical examination and employer assessment, if such temporary precautionary conditions are job-related, consistent with business necessity, and in compliance with the duty of reasonable accommodation. [10] Thus, under the West Virginia Human Rights Act, W.Va.Code, 5-11-9 [1998], when undertaken in a good-faith fashion that is consistent with the duty of reasonable accommodation, [11] the use of a light duty program or assignment does not establish disability discrimination, and the mere fact that an employer places an employee on light duty does not prove disability discrimination. Based on the foregoing reasoning, the instructional language proposed by the Hospital in the instant case, regarding when a medical examination can be required, was both an accurate statement of the law and directly pertinent to the Hospital's defense  because the proposed language told the jury not to draw any adverse inference or conclusion of disability discrimination from the mere fact that the Hospital had required Mr. Stone to have an independent medical examination. The instructional language proposed by the Hospital stating that the mere fact of placing an employee on light duty does not prove a disability discrimination claim is of the same character as the medical examination language, because it correctly told the jury not to draw an adverse inference or conclusion of disability discrimination from an occurrence that was not in itself illegal. Based on the foregoing, we agree with the Hospital that the circuit court erroneously gave a charge that did not include correct statements of the applicable law regarding medical examinations and light duty. Because of this error, the Hospital would be at a minimum entitled to a new trial. B.