Opinion ID: 2207114
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Objection to Instructions Defining Handicap or Handicapped Person.

Text: Plaintiff asserts that the trial court's instructions defining handicap or handicapped person were erroneous and prejudiced him in establishing the theory on which his disability discrimination claim was based. Although the State has at all times asserted that it believed plaintiff was recovered from his back condition and that its refusal to rehire him was based on the relative merit of the competing applicants, plaintiff brands this contention as pretextuous. He argues that the real reason for not hiring him was a perceived physical disability. He presents his claim as one in which the State's representatives in the hiring process incorrectly believed that the disability which caused his separation from employment in 1981 continued to exist in March of 1982. Based on this premise, plaintiff contends the trial court should have defined handicap or handicapped person in the instructions to include those persons who are regarded as being handicapped although not in fact deserving that characterization. Plaintiff offered a proposed instruction incorporating that concept which was refused. The trial court otherwise defined handicap as follows: The terms disability or handicap, under Iowa law, refer to a physical condition which constitutes a substantial handicap and which is unrelated to the person's ability to perform in a reasonably competent and satisfactory manner jobs or positions which are available to him or her. Plaintiff bases his challenge to the foregoing instruction on regulations promulgated by the Iowa Civil Rights Commission to aid in administering chapter 601A. One of these regulations, 240 Iowa Admin.Code 6.1(1), defines a substantially handicapped person as [T]he term substantially handicapped person shall mean any person who has a physical or mental impairment which substantially limits one or more major life activities, has a record of such an impairment, or is regarded as having such an impairment. Another subparagraph of this regulation provides: The term is regarded as having an impairment means: a. Has a physical or mental impairment that does not substantially limit major life activities but that is perceived as constituting such a limitation; b. Has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits major life activities only as a result of the attitudes of others toward such impairment; or c. Has none of the impairments defined to be physical or mental impairments, but is perceived as having such an impairment. 240 Iowa Admin.Code 6.1(5) (emphasis added). [6] Both of these provisions were discussed and applied in Brown v. Hy-Vee Food Stores, Inc., 407 N.W.2d 598, 600 (Iowa 1987). Plaintiff relies on the italicized portion of the latter regulation in claiming entitlement to an instruction on perceived disability. Our task in applying this regulation to the present situation is complicated by the fact that we are considering a proposed alternative scenario to an allegedly pretextuous reason for not hiring plaintiff. The issue thus becomes whether, if the State did not hire plaintiff because it believed he was physically unable to do the work and was wrong in that assessment, this error of judgment would constitute an unlawful discrimination in hiring under section 601A.6(1)(a). We believe it does not. To literally apply the language of subparagraph c of 240 Iowa Administrative Code 6.1(5) to this set of facts would extend the scope of an employment discrimination claim beyond the breadth of the statute by which such claims have been created. Agency action in promulgating a rule may not exceed its statutory authority. Sommers v. Iowa Civil Rights Comm'n, 337 N.W.2d 470, 475 (Iowa 1983). In order for the definition contained in subparagraph c of these regulations to be given effect under the act, it must be limited to situations involving a categorical organic disorder of the body. Cf. Sommers, 337 N.W.2d at 476. The definition may not be extended to differences of opinion over the degree of recovery from a disabling injury, notwithstanding a lack of reasonable basis for the employer's belief. The district court did not err in rejecting plaintiff's proposed instruction on perceived disability. [7]