See also: Supreme Court Narrows Reach of Disability Law

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/08/national/08CND-SCOTUS.html?todaysheadlines

There is link to the actual decision, Toyota v Williams


       Williams had a physical impairment, a form of carpel tunnel syndrome, 
which she developed from using pneumatic tools during her initial employment 
at Toyota.  She settled a worker's compensation case and  a prior ADA case 
with the employer.  As an accommodation under the settled ADA case, she was 
given an inspection job where she did not have to use her hands in repetitive 
motions or hold her hands at shoulder height for long periods of time.   But 
then the employer changed her job tasks so that she had to hold an object at 
shoulder height for a long time and her carpel tunnel syndrome was 
aggravated.  At one point a doctor certified that she was unable to work, and 
she missed days of work.  The employer discharged her for lack of attendance 
at work.  Williams filed her second ADA action based upon the employer's lack 
of accommodation to her disability.

         The issue of the performance of job-specific tasks and the issue of 
accommodation by the employer are never addressed because the courts focus on 
the definition of disability under the ADA.  The federal district court ruled 
that Williams was not disabled, the federal court of appeals ruled that 
Williams was disabled, and then the Supreme Court said that the court of 
appeals had applied the incorrect interpretation of the definition of 
disabled under the ADA and sent the case back down to the district court for 
reconsideration in light of the Supreme Court's decision.  The ADA in its 
definition of disabled requires a physical impairment which substantially 
limits one or more major life activities.  The Supreme Court said it was not 
deciding if working was a major life activity under that definition of 
disabled under the ADA; the Supreme Court said that it was deciding whether 
Williams could perform manual tasks as a major life activity under the ADA.   
(This legal hairsplitting flows from how Williams' attorney framed the issues 
in district court to avoid that issue of whether or not working was a major 
life activity).    
 
             From Part IV of the Court's decision, citations deleted:

             "While the Court of Appeals in this case addressed the different 
major life activity of performing manual tasks, its analysis circumvented 
Sutton [a previous case] by focusing on respondents inability to perform 
manual tasks associated only with her job. This was error. When addressing 
the major life activity of performing manual tasks, the central inquiry must 
be whether the claimant is unable to perform the variety of tasks central to 
most peoples daily lives, not whether the claimant is unable to perform the 
tasks associated with her specific job. ***Even more critically, the manual 
tasks unique to any particular job are not necessarily important parts of 
most peoples lives. As a result, occupation-specific tasks may have only 
limited relevance to the manual task inquiry. In this case, repetitive work 
with hands and arms extended at or above shoulder levels for extended periods 
of time, the manual task on which the Court of Appeals relied, is not an 
important part of most peoples daily lives. The court, therefore, should not 
have considered respondents inability to do such manual work in her 
specialized assembly line job as sufficient proof that she was substantially 
limited in performing manual tasks.      At the same time, the Court of 
Appeals appears to have disregarded the very type of evidence that it should 
have focused upon. It treated as irrelevant [t]he fact that [respondent] can 
ten[d] to her personal hygiene [and] carr[y] out personal or household 
chores. Yet household chores, bathing, and brushing ones teeth are among the 
types of manual tasks of central importance to peoples daily lives, and 
should have been part of the assessment of whether respondent was 
substantially limited in performing manual tasks.  *** In addition, according 
to respondents deposition testimony, even after her condition worsened, she 
could still brush her teeth, wash her face, bathe, tend her flower garden, 
fix breakfast, do laundry, and pick up around the house.  The record also 
indicates that her medical conditions caused her to avoid sweeping, to quit 
dancing, to occasionally seek help dressing, and to reduce how often she 
plays with her children, gardens, and drives long distances. But these 
changes in her life did not amount to such severe restrictions in the 
activities that are of central importance to most peoples daily lives that 
they establish a manual-task disability as a matter of law."  [Yikes!!!]

       The U.S. Supreme Court, the final authority in the interpretation of 
the ADA, clearly says that the definition of disability has to be 
construed/interpreted strictly, narrowly, that congress intended that very 
few people come within the protection of the ADA.  Williams still has a last 
shot at the district court level, but it is unlikely that the district court 
will say that she is disabled.  And I doubt if very many other people will be 
found to be "disabled" now under the ADA.  And if someone is found to be 
"disabled" under this narrow definition, that person probably cannot peform 
the job, any job, because the person is so impaired.  Yikes!!!!  The ADA may 
not have been gutted here, but it sure looks like it.  At a minimum persons 
who seek the protections of the ADA will have to be very careful about the 
definition of disability and the presentation of proof of disability.  And 
the issue of the ability to perform  job-specific tasks will probably not be 
discussed at all until after the person meets this incredibly high standard 
of proof for a "disability."  The Supreme Court also said that each case had 
to be considered by itself and that a specfic diagnosis would not be 
determinitive of "disability" under the ADA.  To get any reasonable 
protection under the ADA in the future, we may have to get Congress to change 
the law and its definition of disability.     Katie   

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