Court Opinion

ID: 9490688
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:52:02.045366+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:15.967493
License: Public Domain

KEARSE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
With all due respect, I must dissent. The majority, in reinstating the amended complaint of plaintiff Dan Buckley against defendant Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc. (“Con Edison”), under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (“ADA” or the “Act”), 42 U.S.C. §§ 12101-12213 (1994), rules that an employer violates the ADA by failing to accommodate a condition that is not a disability within the meaning of the Act and by conducting drug/alcohol tests of employees who are known former addicts more frequently than it tests other employees. In my view, the majority has failed to apply the plain terms of the Act.
The ADA prohibits an employer from discriminating in, inter alia, terms or conditions of employment, against “a qualified individual with a disability because of the disability of such individual.” 42 U.S.C. § 12112(a). Even assuming the correctness of the majority’s ruling that “being, a recovering drug addict is a disability” within the meaning of the ADA, Majority Opinion ante at 272,1 see *276two critical flaws in the majority’s conclusion that Buckley stated a valid claim under the Act.
First, a plaintiff does not state a claim under the ADA unless he alleges that the discrimination was “because of the disability.” 42 U.S.C. § 12112(a). Further, although the Act defines discrimination to include the employer’s not making reasonable accommodation for a known physical or mental limitation of an otherwise qualified individual with a disability, see id. § 12112(b)(5)(A), it does not require employers to accommodate an impairment that neither constitutes nor results from a disability within the meaning of the Act, see, e.g., EEOC Guidelines, 29 C.F.R. pt. 1630, App. § 1630.9 (1996) (“[ejmployers are obligated to make reasonable accommodation only to the physical or mental limitations resulting from the disability ” covered by the Act and known to the employer (emphasis added)). Although often an employer’s motivation presents a factual issue that cannot be decided prior to trial, the motivation alleged here is legally insufficient.
In the present case, Buckley, a recovering substance abuser, alleged that he was discharged because he failed to produce a urine sample during a supervised drug test. The amended complaint alleged that Con Edison subjected employees previously identified as substance abusers to random testing on the average of once every 25 days (Amended Complaint ¶ 6); that “[t]o accomplish this aleohol/drug testing, plaintiff was required to provide a urine specimen under observation and, on occasion, to strip naked to provide said urine specimen” (id.); that his employment “was terminated because he was unable to urinate on command and supply a sample to defendant’s drug testing doctor” (id. ¶ 7); that that inability resulted from a neurogenic bladder condition, which caused Buckley to “suffer[ ] from an inability to urinate, particularly in public or on command” (id. ¶ 11); that Con Edison “failfed] ... to reasonably accommodate him by extending the time allowed for him to urinate” (id. ¶ 10); and that therefore “the drug test at bar was ‘unreasonable’ ” (id. ¶ 18). There is no suggestion that Buckley’s inability to produce a urine sample under supervision was related to his recovering-substance-abuser status; and his amended complaint states expressly that his neurogenic bladder condition “is not claimed as a disability pursuant to the [ADA].” (Id. ¶ 11 (emphasis in original).)
Thus, Buckley’s claim was that he was discharged not because he was a recovering addict but because his neurogenic bladder condition prevented his compliance with Con Edison’s drug testing program; he claimed not that his status as a recovering addict was not accommodated, but that his unrelated bladder condition was not accommodated. Since the inability to urinate under supervision or in public neither is nor results from a disability within the meaning of the ADA, and it is that inability that Con Edison refused to accommodate and that caused the termination of Buckley’s employment, I would conclude that Buckley has not stated a claim under the Act.
Second, the majority implicitly rules that Con Edison discriminated against Buckley because of his reeovering-substance-abuser status because it tests such employees more frequently than it tests employees who have neurogenic bladder conditions but who are not recovering substance abusers. The ADA provides, however, that “reasonable policies or procedures, including ... drug testing, designed to ensure that a former substance abuser is no longer engaging in the illegal use of drugs” “shall not be a violation of [the Act].” 42 U.S.C. § 12114(b). Since it is not an ADA violation for an employer to administer reasonable drug tests to former substance abusers without administering any tests to other employees, it logically cannot be a violation for employers to administer such tests to both former abusers and nonabusers, but simply to test the former more frequently.
Although the majority quotes § 12114(b) and goes on to say, correctly, that it is “[n]o[t] ... illegitimate for employers to require that employees with a history of addiction submit to more frequent testing than other employees,” Majority Opinion ante at 274, it then proceeds to disregard this principle. It finds that Con Edison is validly alleged to have engaged in ADA-prohibited *277discrimination because recovering addicts are “required to take a drug test approximately once a month, while employees without a record of addiction are only tested, on average, once every five years”; thus “the neurogenic bladder employees who are recovering addicts will be fired after one month,” while “neurogenic bladder employees who are not recovering addicts will instead be fired after an average of five years”; and that “[t]his differential treatment discriminates on the basis of an ADA-covered disability (being a recovering addict) and therefore constitutes a prima facie violation of the ADA” — unless reasonable accommodation is made for employees with the neurogenic bladder condition. Majority Opinion ante at 274. Even bypassing this last flaw that, as discussed above, an employer is not required by the Act to make accommodation for a condition that neither is nor results from a disability within the meaning of the Act, the majority’s rationale boils down squarely to a ruling that there is impermissible discrimination against recovering addicts because of the greater frequency of testing. Its conclusion that a recovering addict with a neurogenic bladder condition is the victim of such discrimination because he will be fired after one month, whereas the otherwise similarly situated non-abuser with a neurogenic bladder condition will be fired after five years, is based solely on the fact that the recovering addict is tested once a month rather than once a lust-rum. More frequent testing of former drug abusers is, however, permissible under the Act.
In sum, the amended complaint does not allege that Buckley was discharged because he was a recovering addict; does not allege that Con Edison failed to make accommodation for his status as a recovering addict; and does not allege that random testing of known former substance abusers on the average of once every 25 days is unreasonable. It alleges instead that Buckley was discharged because Con Edison unreasonably refused to accommodate Buckley’s neurogenic bladder condition, i.e., that it refused to accommodate a condition that neither is nor results from a disability covered by the ADA. I would thus affirm the dismissal for failure to state a claim on which relief can be granted under the Act.