Court Opinion

ID: 9719096
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:42:18.858162+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:04.602206
License: Public Domain

Reilly, J.
(concurring). I concur with the majority opinion as to the result only. I write separately because I believe that the appellate posture of this case requires us to address the issue whether perceived handicaps are protected under the hcra and because I am convinced that the trial court erred in its resolution of this issue.
In finding for claimant in the administrative hearing below, the commission concluded that claimant had established a claim under the hcra solely because petitioner "perceived and treated him as a handicapped person,” and discriminated against him as a result. In vacating the commission’s order, the circuit court held that this latter conclusion was contrary to law, i.e., the circuit court ruled that a person must have an actual handicap in order to come within the hcra:
In other words, I don’t see how you encourage employers to hire — to comply with the statute *150when you simply say this par — anybody can come in and say they should have been hired because they weren’t handicapped. And that’s exactly what the Civil Rights Commission is trying to do here is to say that the employer must hire Mr. Roznowski —because Mr. Roznowski is not handicapped and because the employer did not take sufficient steps to prove that he is not handicapped. And that is not the purpose of the Handicappers’ Law in my judgment.
Given the narrowness of these conflicting rulings, I believe that we must address whether discrimination based on the perception that a person is handicapped is actionable under the hcra.
Moreover, I conclude that the trial court erred in holding that claims arising from perceived handicap situations are not actionable under the hcra. I note that the hcra does not require that a claimant have a medically cognizable physical disability or mental deficiency, or that the claimant’s assertion of a "handicap” be supported by expert testimony. Instead, the definition of the term "handicap” requires only that the claimant have an ascertainable physical or mental characteristic which may be related to disease, injury, etc. See MCL 37.1103; MSA 3.550(103). Moreover, the existence of a determinable physical or mental characteristic is not a "handicap” under the act, regardless of how innocuous or debilitating, unless it is "unrelated to the individual’s ability to perform the duties” of the particular job. See Carr v General Motors Corp, 425 Mich 313, 321-322; 389 NW2d 686 (1986); Bowerman v Malloy Lithographing, Inc, 171 Mich 110; 430 NW2d 742 (1988). The act’s definition of "handicap” does not focus so much on the status of a claimant’s physical or mental condition as it does on whether that condition affects the claimant’s performance. Given this *151emphasis, it would be inconsistent to extend protection under the act only to those claimants with physical or mental conditions that can be medically certified as disabling.
Further, the hcra is a remedial statute and is thus to be liberally construed. Wilks v Taylor School Dist, 174 Mich App 232, 241; 435 NW2d 436 (1988). In this regard, the act includes the following prohibition in conjunction with the definition of "handicap”:
An employer shall not:
(a) Fail or refuse to hire, recruit, or promote an individual because of a handicap that is unrelated to the individual’s ability to perform the duties of a particular job or position. [MCL 37.1202(1); MSA 3.550(202)(1).]
In accordance with this remedial purpose, it would be incongruous to prohibit discriminatory conduct in one case, where the victim has an actual physical disability or mental deficiency which is unrelated to job performance, but allow the same type of conduct in another situation, where the victim does not have an actual disability or deficiency but where the employer mistakenly believes otherwise. For example, under the hcra as interpreted by petitioner and the trial court, an employer would be prohibited from discriminating against a job applicant who is overweight, when weight is unrelated to job performance, but permitted to discriminate against another applicant for the same job who is not overweight, but is perceived to be by the employer. Such an interpretation is unreasonable because the applicant who was perceived to be overweight is equally as aggrieved by the discriminatory treatment as the person who was, in fact, overweight. *152Further, the result is illogical because the employer’s conduct is equally objectionable in either case.
Therefore, I conclude that the trial court erred in finding that the hcra does not protect those persons who are discriminated against because of a perception that they have a physical disability or mental deficiency, whether or not such condition actually exists.