United States: US Supreme Court Strikes Blow at the Disabled
January 2002 - Supreme Court Decides Two Important Cases

Originally published in Sirote & Permutt's Employment & Labor Law Bulletin January 2002

The United States Supreme Court reviewed the meaning of the term "disability" under the ADA. In Toyota Motor Manufacturing v. Ella Williams, 2002 U.S. Lexis 400, the plaintiff worked on the engine fabrication assembly line at Toyota Motor’s fabrication plant in Kentucky. The plaintiff claimed that her carpel tunnel syndrome disabled her from performing her automobile assembly line job. Specifically, plaintiff began working for Toyota’s plant in Georgetown, Kentucky in August of 1990. She eventually worked on the engine fabrication assembly line where her duties included work with various pneumatic tools. Use of these tools eventually caused plaintiff pain in her hands, wrists and arms. She was treated by Toyota’s in-house medical service and diagnosed with bilateral carpel tunnel syndrome and bilateral tendonitis. She then sought treatment from a personal physician who placed her on permanent restrictions which precluded her from 1) lifting more than 20 lbs.; 2) frequently lifting or carrying objects weighing up to 10 lbs.; 3) engaging in constant, repetitive flexion or extension of her wrists or elbows; 4) performing overhead work or 5) using vibratory or pneumatic tools.

Because of these restrictions, Toyota assigned plaintiff to various modified job duties. Plaintiff was unsatisfied with Toyota’s efforts to accommodate her restrictions and brought an action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky alleging that Toyota had violated the ADA by refusing to accommodate her disability. Toyota settled this suit and plaintiff returned to work for Toyota in December 1993.

When plaintiff returned to work, Toyota placed on her on a team in quality control inspection operations ("QCIO"). QCIO was responsible for four tasks 1) assembly paint; 2) paint second inspection; 3) shell body audit and 4) ED surface repair. Plaintiff was initially placed on the team that performed "assembly paint" and "paint second inspection". In assembly paint, plaintiff visually inspected painted cars moving slowly down a conveyor. She scanned the cars for scratches, dents, chips and other flaws that may have occurred during the assembly or the painting process. The rate of inspection was one car every 54 seconds. When she first commenced working in the paint assembly area, team members were required to open and shut the doors, trunks and/or hoods of each passing car. Sometime during her tenure, the position was eventually modified to include only a visual inspection with very few manual tasks. The paint second inspection area required team members to use their hands to wipe each painted car with a glove as it moved along a conveyor. Both parties agreed that the plaintiff was physically capable of performing each of these jobs and that her performance was satisfactory.

In the fall of 1996, Toyota announced that it wanted all QCIO employees to be able to rotate through all of the four QCIO processes. Plaintiff therefore received training for the shell body audit job in which team members apply highlight oil to the hood, fender, doors, rear quarter panel and trunk of passing cars at a rate of approximately one car per minute. The highlight oil has a viscosity similar to salad oil and employees spread it over the cars using a large sponge attached to a block of wood. After each car is wiped with oil, the employees visually inspect it for flaws. Performing this function requires the plaintiff to hold her hands and arms at shoulder height for several hours at a time. Shortly after the shell body audit job was added to plaintiff’s responsibilities, she began to experience pain in her neck and shoulders. She consulted Toyota’s in-house medical service where she was diagnosed with myotendonitis; myositis bilateral fore arms with nerve compression causing median nerve irritation; and thoracic let compression, a condition that causes pain in the nerves that lead to the upper extremities; and periscapular, an inflammation of the muscles and tendons around both of her shoulder blades.

Plaintiff requested that Toyota accommodate her medical conditions by allowing her to return to only doing her original two jobs in QCIO. Plaintiff contends that Toyota refused her request and forced her to continue to work in the shell body audit job which caused her even greater physical injury. Toyota contended that plaintiff simply began missing work on a regular basis. On December 6, the last day that plaintiff worked for Toyota, her physician placed her under a "no work of any kind" restriction. On January 27, 1997, Toyota terminated plaintiff’s employment citing her poor attendance record.

Plaintiff filed a charge of discrimination with the EEOC and later, after receiving a right to sue letter, sued Toyota in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky. In her complaint, plaintiff alleged that Toyota had violated the ADA, as well as a Kentucky statute by failing to reasonably accommodate her disability and by terminating her employment. She later amended her complaint to allege a violation of the Family Medical Leave Act of 1993.

Plaintiff based her claim that she was disabled under the ADA on the grounds that her physical impairments substantially limited her in 1) manual tasks; 2) housework; 3) gardening; 4) playing with her children; 5) lifting and 6) working, all of which she alleged constituted major life activities under the ADA. Alternatively, plaintiff alleges that she was disabled under the ADA because she had a record of a substantially limiting impairment and because she was regarded as having such an impairment.

The district court granted summary judgment for Toyota reasoning that plaintiff had not been disabled as defined by the ADA at the time Toyota refused to accommodate her and therefore, it was not covered by the Act’s protections. Specifically, the district court held that although plaintiff had suffered from physical impairments, these impairments did not qualify as a disability because it had not "substantially limited" any "major life activity". The court specifically rejected plaintiff’s arguments that gardening, doing housework and playing with children are major life activities. The court agreed, however, that performing manual tasks, lifting and working are major life activities. It concluded that the evidence was insufficient to demonstrate that plaintiff had been substantially limited in lifting and working and noted that plaintiff’s claim that she was substantially impaired in performing manual tasks contradicted her continual insistence that she could perform the task in the assembly paint and paint second inspection functions without difficulty. The court also found no evidence that plaintiff had a record of a substantially limiting impairment or that Toyota regarded her as having such an impairment. The court also concluded that even if it assumed plaintiff was disabled at the time of her termination, she was not a qualified individual with a disability because the time of her termination, her physician had restricted her from performing work of any kind. The court also concluded that plaintiff did not present any evidence that she had suffered any damages available under the FMLA.

The Court of Appeals held that in order for plaintiff to demonstrate that she was disabled due to a substantial limitation and the ability to perform manual tasks at the time of her accommodation request, she had to show that her manual disability involved a class of manual activities affecting her ability to perform tasks at work. The court reasoned plaintiff satisfied this standard because her ailments prevented her from doing the tasks associated with certain types of manual assembly line jobs, manual product handling jobs and manual building trade jobs (painting, plumbing, roofing, etc.) that required a gripping of tools and repetitive work with hands and arms extended at or above shoulder level for extended periods of time. In reaching this conclusion, the Court of Appeals disregarded evidence concerning plaintiff’s inability to perform "personal hygiene and personal household chores", finding that such evidence "does not affect a determination that her impairments substantially limit her ability to perform the range of manual tasks associated with an assembly line job."

The United States Supreme Court reviewed the Sixth Circuit opinion and determined that the Court of Appeals incorrectly determined that plaintiff was disabled under the ADA. The Supreme Court ruled that to be substantially limited in performing manual tasks, an individual must have an impairment that prevents or severally restricts the individual from doing activities that are of central importance to most peoples’ daily lives, such as WALKING, SEEING AND HEARING. The court also stated the impairments must be permanent or long-term. The court reasoned that it is insufficient for individuals attempting to prove disability status under this test to merely submit evidence of a medical diagnosis of an impairment. Instead, the court ruled that the ADA requires those claiming the Act’s protections to prove a disability by demonstrating the extent of the limitation. The Court ruled the impairment must cause substantial limitations and these activities that are of central importance to daily life. The court reasoned that this determination must be made on a case-by-case basis depending upon the effect that the impairment had on the particular individual. The court stated that an individualized assessment of the affective impairment is particularly necessary when the impairment is one whose symptoms vary widely from person to person.

The court concluded that 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 manual tasks associated with her specific job. Finally, the court concluded that the manual tasks on which the Court of Appeals relied, i.e. "repetitive work with hands and arms extended at or above shoulder level for extended periods of time" is not an important part of most peoples’ daily lives. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals should not have considered plaintiff’s inability to do such manual work in her specialized assembly line job as sufficient proof that she was substantially limited in performing manual tasks.

The plaintiff appealed the district court’s decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. The Sixth Circuit reversed the district court’s ruling on whether plaintiff was disabled at the time she sought accommodations but affirmed the district court’s ruling on plaintiff’s FMLA and wrongful termination claims.

In a long awaited decision, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Waffle House, 202 U.S. Lexis 489, United States Supreme Court addressed whether arbitration agreements precluded the EEOC from filing an action on behalf of a person who filed an EEOC claim. In a rather striking decision, the United States Supreme Court ruled that arbitration agreements do not preclude the EEOC from initiating a lawsuit on behalf of a person who files a charge. This is so even if the individual has signed an arbitration agreement with his employer.

The Court reviewed carefully the EEOC’s role under Title VII. The Court concluded that the EEOC has independent authority to pursue an action on behalf of the individual, even after the individual has disavowed any desire to seek relief. The Court reasoned that the EEOC’s charge under Title VII is to serve the public interest and that the enforcement authority granted it by Congress under Title VII overrides arbitration agreements enacted pursuant to the Federal Arbitration Act. The Court said its decision will not serve as a deathblow to arbitration agreements under the FAA because, based upon statistics for the year 2000, the EEOC intervened in lawsuits in only 402 of the 79,896 charges it received. According to the Supreme Court because the EEOC is not a party to the arbitration agreements between employers and employees, it is free to file lawsuits in federal and district courts, even in cases where the employer and employee have agreed to arbitrate. According to the Court, the Federal Arbitration Act simply directs courts to place arbitration agreements on equal footing with other contracts but it "does not require parties to arbitrate when they have not agreed to do so." It is stated that the purpose of Congress in 1925, when enacting the Federal Arbitration Act, was "to make arbitration agreements as enforceable as other contracts but not more so." The Court stated that because the FAA is ‘at bottom a policy guaranteeing the enforcement of private contractual agreements’, we look first to whether the parties agreed to arbitrate a dispute, not to general policy goals, to determine the scope of the agreement. It reasoned that while ambiguities in the language of the agreement should be resolved in favor of arbitration, we do not override the clear intent of the parties, or reach a result inconsistent with the plain text of the contract, simply because a policy favoring arbitration is implicated. The Court stated with arbitration in the FAA is a matter of consent "not coercion." The Court reasoned that here there is no ambiguity. No one asserts that the EEOC was a party to the contract or is a party to the contract or that it agreed to arbitrate its claims. The Supreme Court concluded therefore "it goes without saying that a contract cannot bind a non-party." Accordingly, the pro-arbitration policy goals of the FAA do not require the agency [EEOC] to relinquish its statutory authority if it has not agreed to do so."

Sirote & Permutt’s Labor and Employment Group hosts monthly seminars on labor and employment related matters. All labor and employment clients are encouraged to participate. Written handouts, training certificates and lunch are provided to all attendees.

The January seminar will address Discipline, discharge and documentation and will be held in the Community Room on the ground floor of Sirote and Permutt’s Birmingham office on JANUARY 30, 2002 at 11:30 a.m., rather than January 23, 2002, as previously stated.