Opinion ID: 787450
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Supreme Court's Decision in Arline

Text: 112 In addition to the statutory text and legislative history, the Supreme Court's decision in School Board of Nassau County v. Arline, 480 U.S. 273, 107 S.Ct. 1123, 94 L.Ed.2d 307 (1987), also requires that regarded as employees be entitled to reasonable accommodations. Arline involved a claim based on the Rehabilitation Act. The Court pointed out that the Act's definition of handicapped individual had been amended to read as follows: 113 [A]ny person who (i) has a physical or mental impairment which substantially limits one or more of such person's major life activities, (ii) has a record of such an impairment, or (iii) is regarded as having such an impairment. 114 Arline, 480 U.S. at 279, 107 S.Ct. 1123. The Court explained that this expansion of the definition was intended to preclude discrimination against `[a] person who has a record of, or is regarded as having, an impairment [but who] may at present have no actual incapacity at all.' Arline, 480 U.S. at 279, 107 S.Ct. 1123 (quoting Southeastern Cmty. Coll. v. Davis, 442 U.S. 397, 405-406 n. 6, 99 S.Ct. 2361, 60 L.Ed.2d 980 (1979)) (alterations in original). The Court held that the teacher plaintiff, who had a contagious but not substantially limiting form of tuberculosis, fell into this category. It found that employers had an affirmative obligation [under the Rehabilitation Act] to make a reasonable accommodation for such an employee, Arline, 480 U.S. at 289 n. 19, 107 S.Ct. 1123, and remanded so that the District Court could determine whether the School Board could have reasonably accommodated her, id. at 288-89, 107 S.Ct. 1123. 115 Given that the regarded as sections of both Acts play a virtually identical role in the statutory scheme, and the well-established rule that the ADA must be read to grant at least as much protection as provided by ... the Rehabilitation Act, Bragdon v. Abbott, 524 U.S. 624, 632, 118 S.Ct. 2196, 141 L.Ed.2d 540 (1998), the conclusion seems inescapable that regarded as employees under the ADA are entitled to reasonable accommodation in the same way as are those who are actually disabled. Of course, additionally, Congress specifically endorsed the Arline approach in crafting the regarded as prong of the ADA's definition of disability. Neither the Eighth Circuit's decision in Weber nor the Ninth Circuit's decision in Kaplan address Arline.