Court Opinion

ID: 9476795
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:05:47.450041+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:31.098891
License: Public Domain

NIES, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment:
I join the majority in affirming the district court’s judgment but vacating the district court’s decision. However, I write separately to make clear that an applicant for federal employment cannot maintain a claim of handicap discrimination because of a particular condition if that handicapping condition is unknowable without violating the regulations against asking questions concerning a person’s handicaps. As a matter of logic, discrimination cannot be the basis for the agency’s decision in such instances.
In connection with an adverse action against a government employee, such as removal, the employee may assert that the grounds for the adverse action are pretextual and that, in fact, the adverse action was taken because of handicap discrimination. As part of that affirmative defense to the adverse action,* the employee must show that the agency knew or reasonably should have known of the handicapping condition. See, e.g., Brink v. United States Veterans Admin., 4 MSPB 419, 423, 4 M.S.P.R. 358 (1980); Dahl v. Department of Labor, 5 MSPB 236, 237, 5 M.S.P.R. 182 (1981).
Similarly, as part of an applicant’s prima facie case of handicap discrimination, I would require a showing that a reasonable interviewer would or should have known or been aware of the applicant’s handicap. Otherwise, the applicant must affirmatively have put the agency on notice. Proof should not be required as part of the prima facie case, however, that the particular interviewing officer was aware of the handicap. Such a subjective proof requirement would place an overly difficult burden on a claimant.
In this case, the district court’s holding of no liability did not turn on the level of sophistication of the particular interviewer in not recognizing that Blackwell was a transvestite. The court found nothing in Blackwell’s past employment record which would convey the information that he was. The court also found that Blackwell’s style of dress at the time of the interview, pants of a feminine style, a shirt-blouse, and a broad stretch belt, was only “somewhat more feminine than that of many homosexuals.” Indeed, Blackwell himself testified that the interview clothes were “unisex” style. In any event, Blackwell does not assert that the agency should have been aware of his handicap simply from his appearance. His argument is that the agency’s awareness is not part of his prima facie case, a premise which must be rejected.

 Upon an appeal of an adverse action, the agency, in effect, becomes plaintiff and bears the burden of proof in a de novo hearing. 5 U.S.C. § 7701(c) (1982).