Opinion ID: 3011695
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Regarded as Disabled Due to Required Medical

Text: Examination Tice further contends that, whether or not he is actually disabled, CATA regarded him as disabled, and thus he can seek the ADA's protection through theregarded as definition of disability. As proof of such regard, Tice points only to the fact that he was requir ed to take an IME when no other employee was forced to do so, even though CATA had the opportunity to consult dir ectly with his doctor. We will address the question whether CATA's IME comported with ADA requirements in Part III.B, infra; in this section, we deal with the distinct (though r elated) issue of whether the request for an IME demonstrates that CATA regarded Tice as disabled. For an individual to be disabled under theregarded as portion of the ADA's definition of disability, the individual must demonstrate either that: (1) despite having no impairment at all, the employer erroneously believes that the plaintiff has an impairment that substantially limits major life activities; or (2) the plaintiff has a nonlimiting impairment that the employer mistakenly believes limits major life activities. See Sutton v. United Air Lines, Inc., 527 U.S. 471, 489 (1999). In either case, the definition of substantially limits remains the same as it does in other parts of the statute -- i.e., if the individual is attempting to establish that the employer believed the individual to be limited in the life activity of working, then working must encompass a broad class of jobs. See id. at 489-93; see also Wright v. Illinois Dep't of Corrections, 204 F.3d 727, 731-33 (7th Cir. 2000); Colwell v. Suffolk County Police Dep't, 158 F.3d 635, 647 (2d Cir. 1998).6 The ADA also has specific provisions, which we have rescribed in the margin, regar ding the propriety of employer-mandated medical examinations.7 These _________________________________________________________________ 6. The EEOC regulations also allow for an individual to establish that he or she is regarded as disabled if he or she [h]as a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits major life activities only as a result of the attitudes of others toward such impair ment. 29 C.F.R. S 1630.2(l)(2). Tice does not claim to be disabled under this definition. 7. The relevant portions of the statute pr ovide: (d) Medical examinations and inquiries 11 provisions, which are not a model of legislative clarity, see Yin v. California, 95 F.3d 864, 868 (9th Cir. 1996), may leave an odd gap in setting out the scope of permissible examinations and inquiries. The Act expressly allows examinations or inquiries as to whether an employee has a disability or as to the severity of a disability, if such examinations/inquiries are job-related and consistent with business necessity. See 42 U.S.C. S 12112(d)(4)(A). The Act also explicitly permits inquiries (but not examinations) as to an employee's ability to perfor m job-related functions. 42 U.S.C. S 12112(d)(4)(B). However, the Act is unclear as to whether examinations (rather than inquiries) are permissible if intended to evaluate the employee's ability to perform job-related functions, even if such examinations are not intended to discover whether an employee is disabled within the meaning of the Act, as permitted in S 12112(d)(4)(A). The EEOC regulations clarify the statute by explaining that [a] covered entity may requir e a medical examination _________________________________________________________________
The prohibition against discrimination as r eferred to in subsection (a) of this section shall include medical examinations and inquiries. . . . (4) Examination and inquiry (A) Prohibited examinations and inquiries A covered entity shall not require a medical examination and shall not make inquiries of an employee as to whether such employee is an individual with a disability or as to the nature or severity of the disability, unless such examination or inquiry is shown to be job-related and consistent with business necessity. (B) Acceptable examinations and inquiries A covered entity may conduct voluntary medical examinations, including voluntary medical histories, which ar e part of an employee health program available to employees at that work site. A covered entity may make inquiries into the ability of an employee to perform job-related functions. 42 U.S.C. S 12112(d). 12 (and/or inquiry) of an employee that is job-r elated and consistent with business necessity. 29 C.F .R. S 1630.14(c).8 Under these standards, a request for an IME that complies with the statutory restrictions will never , in the absence of other evidence, be sufficient to demonstrate that an employer regarded the employee as substantially limited in a major life activity, simply because an examination that is job-related and consistent with business necessity must, at minimum, be limited to an evaluation of the employee's condition only to the extent necessary under the circumstances to establish the employee's fitness for the work at issue. Cf. Sullivan v. River Valley Sch. Dist., 197 F.3d 804, 811-12 (6th Cir. 1999). A r equest for such an appropriately-tailored examination only establishes that the employer harbors doubts (not certainties) with respect to an employee's ability to perform a particular job. Doubts alone do not demonstrate that the employee was held in any particular regard, see Colwell, 158 F.3d at 647, and, as we have explained, inability to perform a particular job is not a disability within the meaning of the Act, see Sullivan, 197 F.3d at 811. Accord Wright , 204 F.3d at 732-33 (request for an examination does not establish that an employer _________________________________________________________________ 8. Although in Sutton, the Supreme Court reserved the question whether the EEOC had been granted congressional authority to issue implementing regulations under 42 U.S.C. SS 12111-12117, and thus whether the regulations are owed defer ence under Chevron, U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 844 (1984), we ourselves have held that EEOC implementing r egulations are owed substantial deference under Chevron. Deane v. Pocono Med. Ctr., 142 F.3d 138, 143 n.4 (3d Cir. 1998) (en banc). As we explained in note 4, supra, the Supreme Court expressly held in Sutton that the EEOC had not been given authority to issue implementing r egulations for Chevron purposes with regard to SS 12101-12102 of the ADA, while simultaneously allowing for the possibility that the EEOC was given such authority with regard to SS12111-12117. See Sutton, 527 U.S. at 478-79. Therefore, although we do not decide whether our holding in Pocono with respect to deference owed to regulations issued under SS12101-12102 survives Sutton, we do believe that our holding with respect to deference for regulations implementing S 12112(d) remains intact. Thus, we defer to the EEOC's interpr etation of S 12112(d) to permit examinations and inquiries that, although perhaps not intended to discover whether an employee is disabled within the meaning of the ADA, are job-related and consistent with business necessity. 13 regarded an employee as disabled wher e all the evidence suggested that the employer merely had doubts about the employee's abilities solely with respect to the physical demands of a single job); Cody v. Cigna Healthcare of St. Louis, Inc., 139 F.3d 595, 599 (8th Cir . 1998) (request for a mental examination of an employee who had exhibited strange behaviors does not establish that the employer regarded the employee as disabled because [e]mployers need to be able to use reasonable means to ascertain the cause of troubling behavior without exposing themselves to ADA claims). Indeed, even an improper IME r equest, without more, might not be sufficient to demonstrate that an employee was regarded as disabled. This is because an inquiry into how an employee was regarded is necessarily quite factspecific, and all of the surrounding cir cumstances may be relevant in reaching a conclusion. So, for instance, if the IME is improper only for the reasons T ice has alleged -- i.e., because the employer already had sufficient information from other sources to gauge the employee's fitness for work -- such facts, standing alone, would not necessarily be determinative of how the employee was regarded. At all events, this is not to say that a request for an IME, proper or improper, may not, taken in conjunction with other evidence or circumstances surrounding the request, establish that the employer regarded the employee as disabled. The important point is that the request and surrounding circumstances must establish that the employee was regarded as disabled within the meaning of the ADA. See Sutton, 527 U.S. at 490-93. So, for example, if it turned out that the employer's examination was not limited to an assessment of those potential impair ments that had occasioned the examination in the first place, but instead became a wide-ranging assessment of mental or physical debilitation, Sullivan, 197 F .3d at 812, such evidence might be highly probative as to the nature of the employer's perception. Further, a r equest for an examination, taken in conjunction with evidence suggesting that the employer had no reasonable basis for harboring doubts about the employee's ability to do his or her job in 14 the first place, might also be probative as to the nature of the employer's regard. Thus, for T ice to use CATA's request for an IME to establish that CATA r egarded him as substantially limited in the major life activity of working, he must raise a genuine issue of fact as to whether CA TA's request evinced a belief that Tice was unable to work in a broad class of jobs. Tice has not even attempted to make such a showing. On the contrary, he has explicitly argued in his briefing only that CATA believed Tice's impair ment precluded him from working as a bus driver. Further, it is undisputed that CATA's inquiries of Tice's doctor , and the IME itself, all focused solely on the physical requirements of bus driving.9 Therefore, even if CATA believed Tice to be unable to drive a bus, such a regard would still not establish that CATA regarded him as disabled. Because there has been no other evidence besides the request for an IME submitted to establish the nature of CATA's r egard for Tice, we hold that Tice has not put forth sufficient evidence to create an issue of fact as to his entitlement to ADA pr otection. Thus, Tice has failed to make out the first element of a prima facie case of ADA discrimination, i.e., that ofdisability, and his claim that CATA deliberately misclassified his injuries in order to effect a discriminatory discharge fails.