Opinion ID: 859134
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The ADA and the FMLA

Text: Petitioners argue that requiring mine operators to comply with the record demands here conflicts with the ADA and the FMLA and may, under some circum- stances, leave mine operators open to liability under those acts. Regulations promulgated under the ADA permit employers to use entrance medical examinations to screen potential employees and to require medical examinations of current employees to assess their ability to perform job-related functions. 29 C.F.R. § 1630.14(b), (c). The regulations require employees to treat the results of these examinations as “confidential medical record[s],” § 1630.14(b)(1), (c)(1), subject to three exceptions: for supervisors and managers who need to make accommodations, for first aid and safety personnel Nos. 12-2316 & 12-2460 51 if emergency treatment might be required, and for “[g]overnment officials investigating compliance with this part.” § 1630.14(b)(1)(i)-(iii). Regulations promulgated under the FMLA include a substantially similar provision: records and documents relating to employee medical histories that employers create or keep pursuant to the FMLA must be “main- tained as confidential medical records.” 29 C.F.R. § 825.500(g) (tracking language from and refer- encing ADA regulation 29 C.F.R. § 1630.14(b), (c)). The FMLA’s confidentiality requirement contains exceptions for supervisors, managers, and first aid and safety personnel that are identical to the ADA’s, and another for “government officials investigating compliance with FMLA (or other pertinent law[s]).” § 825.500(g)(1)-(3). None of these provisions conflicts with or should limit MSHA’s authority to inspect and copy medical records here. These regulations merely state that if, in the course of their duties under the ADA and the FMLA, employers collect medical records on employees, those records must be treated as confidential. In our view, employee medical records that employers collect pursuant to the ADA or the FMLA will be kept con- fidential even if mine operators permit MSHA in- spectors to inspect and copy them. As explained above, we read section 813 of the Mine Safety Act and corresponding regulation section 50.41 to permit MSHA to require mine operators to allow MSHA to inspect and copy employee medical records that may be relevant to work-related injuries or illnesses. Such inspection and 52 Nos. 12-2316 & 12-2460 copying does not violate miners’ privacy, in part because MSHA agents are bound by the Privacy Act to prevent unwarranted disclosure of their contents. Both of these holdings apply to all potentially relevant employee medical records, whether they would otherwise be subject to ADA or FMLA confidentiality requirements or not. While the ADA’s exemption does not expressly extend to “other pertinent law” as the FMLA’s exemption does, the ADA regulations provide: “It may be a defense to a charge of discrimination under this part that a challenged action is required or necessitated by another Federal law or regulation . . . .” 29 C.F.R. § 1630.15(e). Thus, because the Mine Safety Act requires mine operators to permit MSHA agents to inspect and copy employee medical records relevant to mine-related injuries or illnesses, we see no conflict between the ADA’s confidentiality requirement and MSHA’s demands here. If in the future an agency responsible for enforcing the ADA tried to take action against a mine operator for following MSHA’s orders to produce relevant documents, our doors would be open to resolve such a dispute. For either the ADA or FMLA regulations to supersede MSHA’s power to inspect records under the Mine Safety Act, the text of the ADA and the FMLA would need to say explicitly that Congress intended to limit the powers it had previously granted to MSHA. Neither law contains such language. See National Ass’n of Home Builders v. Defenders of Wildlife, 551 U.S. 644, 662-63 (2007) (collecting cases to support rule of statutory conNos. 12-2316 & 12-2460 53 struction that “repeals by implication are not favored and will not be presumed unless the intention of the legislature to repeal [is] clear and manifest,” holding “[w]e will not infer a statutory repeal unless the later statute expressly contradict[s] the original act,” and noting further that “a statute dealing with a narrow, precise, and specific subject is not submerged by a later enacted statute covering a more generalized spectrum”) (internal quotation marks omitted), citing Watt v. Alaska, 451 U.S. 259, 267 (1981); Traynor v. Turnage, 485 U.S. 535, 548 (1988); Radzanower v. Touche Ross & Co., 426 U.S. 148, 153 (1976). Further, given the respective contexts of the ADA and FMLA’s confidentiality requirements, petitioners’ interpretation of those regulations is quite strained. It would mean that one agency could unilaterally limit other agencies’ ability to collect information needed for their purposes. The FMLA, the more recent of the two laws, is written to avoid this anomalous result. Compare 29 C.F.R. § 825.500(g)(3) (third exception permits confidential records to be shared upon request with “Government officials investigating compliance with FMLA (or other pertinent law)” (emphasis added)), with 29 C.F.R. § 1630.14(b)(1)(iii) (ADA regulation permitting confidential records to be shared with “Government officials investigating compliance with this part”). The better interpretation is that the confidentiality requirements are added insurance that employers do not violate employees’ privacy by sharing their medical records with unauthorized parties. But as we have already explained, sharing medical records with MSHA in this case does not violate miners’ privacy, 54 Nos. 12-2316 & 12-2460 regardless of the purpose for which the mine operators initially created or collected the records. Finally, our analysis on this point is consistent with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), Pub. L. No. 104-191, 110 Stat. 1936, which requires health care providers to keep medical records confidential but contains exceptions for disclosures to government entities engaging in “public health activities” and for disclosures by a “public health authority that is authorized by law to collect or receive such information for the purpose of preventing or controlling disease, injury, or disability, including, but not limited to, the reporting of disease [and] injury.” 45 C.F.R. § 164.512(b)(1)(i). This language aptly describes MSHA’s role in these record demands — fulfilling its statutory obligation to protect miner health and safety by collecting information from mines regarding workrelated injuries and illnesses. See also 65 Fed. Reg. 8246201, 82624 (2000) (preamble to HIPAA regulations noting “[w]e agree that OSHA, MSHA and their state equivalents are public health authorities when carrying out their activities related to the health and safety of workers”). For these reasons we find that neither the ADA nor the FMLA limits MSHA’s authority to require mine operators to permit MSHA agents to inspect and copy employee medical and records that are reasonably related to mine-related injuries and illnesses. Nos. 12-2316 & 12-2460 55