Opinion ID: 199563
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Substantially Limiting.

Text: 36 We now reach the crux of the parties' dispute: whether the specified impairment substantially limits the identified major life activity. See 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(g)(1). We put the major life activities of reproduction and working to one side 4 and focus on what we perceive to be the appellant's strongest case: her emphasis on the major life activity of caring for oneself. 37 According to the regulations, substantially limits means that an individual is: 38 (i) Unable to perform a major life activity that the average person in the general population can perform; or 39 (ii) Significantly restricted as to the condition, manner or duration under which an individual can perform a particular major life activity as compared to the condition, manner, or duration under which the average person in the general population can perform that same major life activity. 40 Id. § 1630.2(j)(1). For ADA purposes, the factors to be evaluated in assessing whether an individual is substantially limited in a major life activity include (1) the nature and severity of the impairment, (2) the duration or expected duration of the impairment, and (3) the permanent or long-term impact, or the expected permanent or long-term impact, of or resulting from the impairment. Id. § 1630.2(j)(2). 5 41 The appellant's position is that a fact finder, drawing reasonable inferences in her favor from the doctor's note, could conclude, consistent with the borrowed material, that Hernandez's high blood pressure constituted an impairment that substantially limited her in major life activities (including the ability to care for herself). For summary judgment purposes, the employer does not contest the facts that undergird this claim, but, rather, posits that so fleeting an impairment -- one that may last no more than a matter of weeks -- cannot substantially limit a major life activity (and, therefore, cannot constitute a covered disability). Accepting this reasoning, the district court ruled that the appellant's daughter's condition was a temporary, non-chronic impairment [] of short duration and that, therefore, it did not amount to a disability. Navarro Pomares, 97 F. Supp. 2d at 214. Though plausible at first blush, this ruling cannot survive close scrutiny. 42 In holding that a temporary, non-chronic impairment did not constitute a disability, the lower court relied entirely on an EEOC interpretive guidance, 29 C.F.R. Pt. 1630, App § 1630(h), at 396, thereby implicitly if not explicitly granting Chevron deference to the EEOC's interpretation of its own rules. This was error: although Chevron deference to an agency's interpretive guidance is generally appropriate when a regulation is ambiguous and the agency's resolution of the ambiguity is a permissible construction of the regulation, Christensen v. Harris County, 529 U.S. 576, 587 (2000), the Supreme Court recently has clarified that not all agency interpretations merit Chevron deference. See United States v. Mead Corp., ___ U.S. ___,121 S. Ct. 2164, 2171 (2001). Pertinently, the Mead Court warned that where statutory circumstances indicate no intent to delegate general authority to make rules with force of law, or where such authority was not invoked, a court must review agency interpretations under a less tolerant standard. Id. at 2177 (directing, in such circumstances, resort to the rule of Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U.S. 134 (1944)). In the last analysis, then, such an agency interpretation is entitled to respect only to the extent that the interpretation has the power to persuade. Mayburg v. Sec'y of HHS, 740 F.2d 100, 106 (1st. Cir. 1984) ([U]nder Skidmore the agency ultimately must depend upon the persuasive power of its argument. The simple fact that the agency has a position, in and of itself, is of only marginal significance.) (Breyer, J.). 43 This is significant here because an EEOC interpretive guidance issued pursuant to the ADA simply is not entitled to Chevron deference when applied in the FMLA context. The EEOC never had any authority to promulgate regulations pursuant to the FMLA. To the contrary, Congress explicitly delegated to the Secretary of Labor the sole authority to promulgate such regulations. Even if the Secretary adopts certain EEOC rules as her own (as happened here), she does not automatically adopt the EEOC's informal interpretations of those rules. Moreover, the EEOC itself has been granted no rulemaking power under the FMLA, and therefore its interpretive guidance is certainly not entitled to deference. Indeed, it borders on the Kafkaesque to suggest that the EEOC, acting some three years before Congress passed the FMLA, had invoked the authority delegated to the Secretary of Labor and written interpretations to govern an as-yet-unenacted statute. Accordingly, we decline to grant Chevron deference to the EEOC's interpretive guidance and instead apply the Skidmore standard. 44 Despite the concerns of our dissenting brother, this seems to us a bedrock principle of administrative law. After all, a court cannot blindly defer to the interpretations of an administrative agency simply because that agency has expertise in a field that bears some relation to the statute at issue. To warrant Chevron deference, Congress must actually delegate authority to that agency, and the agency must invoke that authority. 45 Where, as here, an agency's pronouncement (in this instance, the EEOC's interpretive guidance) fails to meet these criteria, an inquiring court must scrutinize that pronouncement and question whether it is in harmony with the statute and the regulations. See Joy Techs., Inc. v. Sec'y of Labor, 99 F.3d 991, 996 (10th Cir. 1996); (explaining that regulations should be construed to mesh with the objectives of the statute that they implement); Dunn v. Sec'y of USDA, 921 F.2d 365, 367 (1st Cir. 1990) (similar); see also Martinez v. R.I. Hous. & Mortg. Fin. Corp., 738 F.2d 21, 26 (1st Cir. 1984) (noting that a rule out of harmony with the statute is a mere nullity). The results of this inquiry will, in turn, determine the persuasive force of the interpretive guidance. We turn, then, to the question of whether the interpretive guidance passes Skidmore muster when applied in an FMLA context. 46 Under Skidmore, we are constrained to weigh the thoroughness evident in [the guidance's] consideration, the validity of its reasoning, its consistency with earlier and later pronouncements, and all those factors which give it power to persuade, if lacking power to control. Skidmore, 323 U.S. at 140. The EEOC's guidance does not fare well when measured against these benchmarks. 47 We can find no thoroughness evident in the consideration of the guidance. For one thing, an interpretive guidance, much like interpretations contained in policy statements, agency manuals, and enforcement guidelines, is not the product of notice-and-comment rulemaking or formal adjudication. Christensen, 529 U.S. at 587. For another thing, this guidance simply was not meant to apply in the FMLA context; the EEOC promulgated it well before the FMLA was anything more than a gleam in its sponsors' eyes. By like token, the guidance is idiosyncratic; it has little consistency with other EEOC pronouncements on the FMLA as the EEOC has made no such pronouncements. 48 This interpretive guidance, moreover, cannot be reconciled with the fundamental premise that a balancing test should be pliant, the scale weighted differently in each case. The Supreme Court has cautioned that in the context of a rule based on a multifactor weighing process[,] every consideration need not be equally applicable to each individual case. FCC v. Nat'l Citizens Comm. for Broad., 436 U.S. 775, 808 n.29 (1978). The regulation here at issue constructs just such a balancing test, and the Supreme Court's caveat conduces to the view that the regulation's list of factors should not be treated as some sort of mandatory checklist (even in the ADA context). 6 The Court's heavy emphasis on the individualized nature of what constitutes a disability for purposes of the ADA, see Albertson's, Inc. v. Kirkingburg, 527 U.S. 555, 566 (1999); Sutton v. United Air Lines, Inc., 527 U.S. 471, 483 (1999); Bragdon, 524 U.S. at 641-42, reinforces the desirability of a flexible case-by-case approach. 49 Indeed, the Court's ADA jurisprudence strongly suggests that the three factors contained in the borrowed regulatory definition of substantially limits should not be given equal weight. When considering the definition of disability under the ADA, the Justices have maintained a steady focus on the present state of an individual's impairment. The Sutton Court observed that [b]ecause the phrase 'substantially limits' appears in the Act in the present indicative verb form, we think that language is properly read as requiring that a person be presently -- not potentially or hypothetically -- substantially limited in order to demonstrate a disability. Sutton, 527 U.S. at 482. This keen attention to the statute's verb tense is persuasive evidence that an individual's present, actual state (rather than a hypothetical, projected state) is paramount in determining whether he or she suffers from a disability. In turn, this designated point of reference militates against according talismanic effect to factors such as duration and long-term impact, which may require the fact finder to hypothesize as to the future course of the impairment. AccordKatz v. City Metal Co., 87 F.3d 26, 30-32 (1st Cir. 1996) (reversing directed verdict for employer on ADA claim even though plaintiff had presented almost no evidence as to the duration of his impairment); EEOC Compliance Manual § 902.4(a), at 5311 (1999) (calling the extent to which an impairment restricts one or more of an individual's major life activities the hallmark of a disability under the ADA, and noting that the impairment's duration is no more than a secondary factor that may affect the analysis) (emphasis supplied). The mechanistic assumption that all the enumerated factors invariably must be present before an impairment can be termed substantially limiting in an ADA case is, therefore, unfounded. The argument against the assumption is even more cogent in an FMLA case. 50 Most importantly, the EEOC interpretive guidance cannot be applied to the FMLA because it clashes with the underlying purposes of the statute. The ADA and the FMLA have divergent aims, operate in different ways, and offer disparate relief. These dissimilarities argue convincingly that the trio of factors - particularly duration - must be treated somewhat differently in the FMLA context than in the ADA context. Cf. Chevron, 467 U.S. at 863-64 (finding definition of source to be flexible and approving EPA's varying interpretations of it in different contexts); Stowell v. Sec'y of HHS, 3 F.3d 539, 542 (1st Cir. 1993) (deeming it apodictic that Congress may choose to give a single phrase different meanings in different parts of the same statute). 51 Two salient considerations fortify this conclusion. First, the concept of disability serves a much different function in the ADA than in the FMLA. Where the ADA is concerned, a finding of disability is the key that unlocks the storehouse of statutory protections. Title I of the ADA provides that a covered employer may not discriminate against a qualified individual with a disability because of that disability. 42 U.S.C. § 12112(a). This means that the employer must, inter alia, make reasonable accommodations to the known physical or mental limitations of an otherwise qualified individual with a disability as long as that disability persists, unless and until those accommodations impose an undue hardship on the employer. Id. § 12112(b)(5)(A). Such accommodations can take various forms, and the duty to accommodate is an ongoing responsibility that is not exhausted by a single effort on the employer's part. Garcia-Ayala v. Lederle Parenterals, Inc., 212 F.3d 638, 648 n.12 (1st Cir. 2000). Given the centrality of a finding of disability under the ADA and the panoply of rights and responsibilities that such a finding triggers, it makes sense to insist that, in most cases, an impairment have an extended duration before it will be deemed so limiting as to constitute a disability. 52 In contrast, the only time that the concept of disability becomes relevant under the FMLA is in the relatively rare instance in which an employee seeks FMLA leave to care for a seriously ill child over the age of eighteen. Even then, the existence vel non of a disability simply provides a partial answer to the question of whether the employee is entitled to leave. See 29 U.S.C. §§ 2612(a)(1)(C), 2611(12)(B). The minor role that the disability determination plays in the context of the FMLA one of three criteria to be met in respect to the infirmity of an adult child before a modest unpaid leave can be taken -- indicates that very little weight should be placed on the duration of an impairment. This is especially so since the duration of the impairment is not even likely to determine the precise term of an FMLA leave, which is far more apt to be measured by how long the child's serious health condition lasts or how long the child is incapable of self-care. See, e.g., Bryant, 18 F. Supp. 2d at 804 (reporting that while son's disabling kidney condition persisted over a period of years, plaintiff's FMLA leave was only part of one day). 53 The second consideration that leads us to believe that factors such as duration must be accorded reduced significance in the FMLA context is that the FMLA deals in much lower levels of employer engagement and employee rewards than does the ADA. For one thing, the FMLA implicates shorter time frames: an employee may qualify for FMLA leave to care for a child under eighteen merely by showing that the child suffers from a serious health condition, which, as defined, can be an illness that lasts as little as four days. See 29 U.S.C. § 2612(a)(1)(C); 29 C.F.R. § 825.114(a)(2)(i); see also Brannon v. Oshkosh B'Gosh, Inc., 897 F. Supp. 1028, 1037 (M.D. Tenn. 1995) (finding that a child who had a fever, was taken to a doctor, and stayed home from day care from Friday through Tuesday had a serious health condition within the purview of the FMLA). For another thing, the maximum annual benefit under the FMLA is twelve weeks of unpaid leave, see 29 U.S.C. § 2612(a)(1), whereas reasonable accommodations under the ADA can last for years on end. Finally, the obligatory interactive process that is a staple of the ADA, see, e.g., Criado v. IBM Corp., 145 F.3d 437, 444 (1st Cir. 1998), is entirely foreign to the FMLA. We mention these contrasting levels of engagement and reward because we think it highly unlikely that, with so much less at stake under the FMLA, Congress would have required FMLA litigants to make the same durational showing as ADA litigants. 54 Having established that the differences between the ADA and the FMLA render the durational factor less important under the latter statute, we turn to the purpose of the FMLA and the light that it sheds on that factor's proper role. A regulation must harmonize with the purpose of the statute it implements. See Grunbeck v. Dime Sav. Bank, 74 F.3d 311, 336 (1st Cir. 1996) ([C]ourts will reject an agency interpretation which conflicts with congressional intent.). The FMLA's primary purposes are to balance the demands of the workplace with the needs of families, to promote the stability and economic security of families, and to promote national interests in preserving family integrity. 29 U.S.C. § 2601(b)(1). Those objectives would be frustrated by reading the implementing regulations through the prism of the EEOC's interpretive guidance, for this would impose a rigid requirement that an employee must prove that an impairment is long-lasting before it can qualify as substantially limiting (and, thus, furnish the basis for FMLA leave). 55 We illustrate this point with a practical example. A worker who seeks to take FMLA leave to care for a child often does so in response to a crisis situation. See, e.g., Caldwell v. Holland of Tex., Inc., 208 F.3d 671, 673 (8th Cir. 2000) (three-year-old son's sudden ear infection); Bryant, 18 F. Supp. 2d at 802 (adult son's unanticipated kidney failure). In many instances, the emergency will have abated by the time that the duration of the child's impairment can be ascertained. If a hard-and-fast durational requirement is enforced, an employee will be effectively prevented from taking family leave to care for an adult child until it can be established that the child's problem will have an adequate duration. By then, the crisis may well have passed. 56 Such a scenario would place an employee with a sick adult child between a rock and a hard place, forcing him or her to choose between employment demands and family needs. This would run at cross purposes with the FMLA's goal of reassuring workers that [w]hen a family emergency arises . . . they will not be asked to choose between continuing their employment, and meeting their personal and family obligations. 29 C.F.R. § 825.101. We do not believe that Congress intended to create so illusory a benefit. 57 The foregoing analysis of the purpose of the FMLA, its structure, and the relief it provides leads us to conclude that -- as the borrowed definition provides -- the duration of an impairment is one of several factors that should be considered in determining the existence of a disability under the FMLA. We also conclude, however, that Congress did not intend that the impairment always be shown to be long-lasting. This last conclusion comports with the major goals of the statute while at the same time respecting Congress's clear intent to set a higher bar for a parent's leave entitlement to care for a child eighteen years of age or older. See 29 U.S.C. § 2611(12). All that is required to ground a leave request vis-a-vis a younger child is that the child have a serious health condition, see id. §§ 2612(a)(1)(C), 2611(12)(A), which can be an illness lasting as little as four days, see 29 C.F.R. § 825.114(a)(2)(i). In comparison, to be eligible for leave to care for an older child, the child not only must have a serious health condition but also must lack the capacity to care for himself or herself due to a disability (which requires demonstrating an impairment, identifying a major life activity, and showing how the impairment substantially limits the major life activity). See 29 U.S.C. § 2611(12)(B); 29 C.F.R. § 825.113(c)(2). Thus, we do not overlook[], as our dissenting brother charges, that Congress intended a meaningful consequence to attach to its use of the word disability in 29 U.S.C. § 2911(12)(B). Rather, we recognize that although the regulation, 29 C.F.R. § 825.113(c)(2), properly interpreted (i.e., without regard to the EEOC's interpretive guidance), does not eliminate duration as relevant factor, it leaves room for an impairment of modest duration to be regarded, in some cases, as substantially limiting for FMLA purposes. 7