The U.S. Supreme Court, in a unanimous 9-0 decision last month, upheld an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) regulation permitting an employer to defend against an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) claim by showing that the worker’s disability on the job would pose a direct threat to his, rather than to a co-worker’s, health. Chevron USA, Inc. v. Echazabal (No. 00-1406).
In this case, Chevron denied a job applicant with hepatitis C employment at one of its refineries because of its view that airborne toxins in the plant could make the applicant sicker and could possibly kill him. The Court’s ruling means that an individual with a disability cannot use the ADA to require an employer to provide a “reasonable accommodation” to work in a location that may be hazardous to him. Instead, the Court’s decision allows an employer to refuse to put the person “in harm’s way.”
In reviewing the Court’s ruling, two points are clear. First, the EEOC has the authority to fill in gaps that Congress left in the ADA when the statute was passed a decade ago. In Echazabal, the Court found that the EEOC properly interpreted a broadly worded employer defense to include situations that are hazardous to the affected employee himself.
Second, the Court recognized that employers are placed in a difficult position when complying with the employee accommodation requirements of the ADA and the safety and health requirements of the Occupational Safety and Health Act. As a result, the Court held that the EEOC could reasonably resolve this apparent conflict by refusing to hold the employer liable for acting to protect employees from hazards that the employees themselves are willing to risk.
The Court’s decision has been hailed by business groups as an important victory for companies subject to the ADA, as it gives employers some “breathing room” between Government demands for maximum workplace safety and competing demands by employees who are willing to risk their lives on jobs that others can do more safely. Companies, however, must continue to make individual determinations in each case to conclude that a particular workplace is not suitable for a particular employee’s condition.
