Opinion ID: 14721
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Question Presented on Appeal

Text: Armstrong appeals only the magistrate judge’s ruling that the ADA does not provide him, as a nondisabled plaintiff, a private right of action to redress Turner’s alleged violation of section 9 The magistrate judge stated that the parties did not cite and the court did not find any cases specifically addressing the question whether an individual [such as Armstrong] who does not meet any of the three alternative definitions of disability may maintain a claim for violation of the ADA’s standards regarding medical inquiries during the job application process. Armstrong, 950 F.Supp. at 166 (footnotes omitted). The magistrate judge noted that Armstrong claimed there was “a genuine dispute . . . whether defendant made a conditional offer of employment before asking him to provide a medical history and submit to a medical examination,” id. at 163, but did not ultimately resolve that issue. However, Turner concedes that the record does reflect a factual dispute in that one respect. 7 12112(d)(2)(A). Armstrong has abandoned his failure-to-hire claim on appeal and does not challenge the magistrate judge’s determination that Turner’s refusal to employ him was not motivated by disability. Likewise, he does not dispute the conclusion that he is not disabled within the meaning of the ADA; nor does he challenge the determination that he was never perceived as or regarded as being disabled by Turner. And he has never claimed that he had (or that Turner believed he had) a record of having a disabling impairment within section 12102(2)(B). As a result, on appeal Armstrong raises the single, discrete legal question whether the ADA provides a private right of action for nondisabled job applicants who are subjected to preemployment medical examinations and inquiries in violation of section 12112(d)(2)(A). He asserts that the magistrate judge erred in his statutory construction of this provision and urges this Court to reverse on that basis. This appears to be a question of first impression among the circuit courts,10 and involves difficult issues of statutory interpretation. We are not unmindful either of the significance of this issue or of the inevitability and necessity of its resolution 10 See Roe v. Cheyenne Mountain Conference Resort, Inc., 124 F.3d 1221, 1229 n.5 (10th Cir. 1997) (declining to decide whether the ADA provides a cause of action to an unsuccessful job applicant subjected to a prohibited inquiry). The question, however, has now been decided by a few district courts. See, e.g., Griffin v. Steeltek, Inc. 964 F.Supp. 317 (N.D. Okla. 1997) (holding that the ADA does not provide a right of action for nondisabled job applicants who are subjected to preemployment medical examinations and inquiries in violation of section 12112(d)(2)). 8 in an appropriate case. Nevertheless, we choose to unravel here only a few of the many strands interwoven in the tangle of issues that envelops the question presented. Our partial reticence is occasioned by the policies of judicial restraint. See Manning v. Upjohn Co., 862 F.2d 545, 547 (5th Cir. 1989). As explained below, we find that, in the context of this case, Armstrong has not demonstrated any injury redressable by damages, and he lacks standing to seek declaratory and injunctive relief, so dismissal of his section 12112(d)(2)(A) claim was proper in any event, whether or not in some other context a nondisabled individual might be afforded judicial relief in respect to a section 12112(d)(2)(A) violation.