Protection Under The Americans With Disabilities Act Requires “Substantial Limitation” Or Perception Of “Substantial Limitation”

In Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. United Parcel Service, Inc., 2002 WL 31096703, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit considered whether an employer’s vision requirements for company drivers may violate the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Background

Commercial drivers are generally subject to the physical standards of the Department of Transportation. Before July 1995, a driver with monocular vision (either completely blind in one eye or worse than 20/200 in one eye) could not qualify under the DOT’s standards. In 1995, however, DOT stopped setting vision requirements for drivers of commercial vehicles weighing less that 10,001 pounds. UPS, a commercial package carrier, then adopted its own vision protocol for potential drivers of these smaller trucks.

Current UPS employees, otherwise arguably qualified to drive the small trucks but excluded under UPS’s vision protocol as being monocular, filed an EEOC complaint. EEOC sued UPS and the employees intervened. The trial court concluded that, because UPS regarded all of the claimants as having an impairment that substantially limited their seeing, each claimant was disabled under the ADA’s standards. It then concluded that UPS’s protocol was too broad and not significantly correlated to the ability to drive safely. The court entered an injunction to restrain UPS from applying its vision protocol unless it modified the protocol to address the court’s concerns. Finally the trial court ordered UPS to allow one specific claimant to advance to its driver training program based on his unique circumstances. UPS appealed.

Court of Appeals Ruling

The Ninth Circuit observed that “for a monocular individual to show that his impairment is a substantial limitation on the major life activity of seeing, the impairment must prevent or severely restrict use of his eyesight compared with how unimpaired individuals normally use their eyesight in daily life.” It stated that, regardless of whether the claimants were actually “substantially limited in seeing,” UPS’s policy may still violate the ADA if UPS regarded the claimants as “substantially limited in seeing.”

The Ninth Circuit Court further observed that employers can legally prefer certain physical characteristics or medical conditions if they do not rise to the level of a physical or mental impairment under the ADA. It continued, “there is nothing improperly discriminatory about a protocol that qualifies individuals for safe driving of particular UPS vehicles on the basis of a condition that is perceived to be limiting their ability to see, but not substantially limiting.” The Court sent the case back to the trial court to determine whether UPS regarded any of the claimants “as having limited, but not substantially limited, vision impairment on the one hand, or on the other hand, incorrectly regarded them as having an impairment that substantially and significantly limits their overall seeing for purposes of daily life.” The Court retained jurisdiction for any future appeal on the disability issues.

Analysis

This opinion demonstrates the complicated nature of ADA compliance. When this case is returned to the trial court, the court must determine whether each claimant is substantially limited in a major life activity by virtue of his vision. Any claimant who is determined to be substantially limited will be entitled to ADA protection such as, specialized training and/or alternative tests. Even if the claimant is not substantially limited, but UPS regards him as substantially limited, he will still be entitled to ADA protection. However, if the claimant is limited but is neither substantially limited nor regarded by UPS to be substantially limited, then he will receive no protection under the ADA and UPS can exclude him from driver training solely because of his limitation without running afoul of the ADA.