An employer unlawfully excluded an applicant from a broad range of jobs based on its faulty interpretation of the results of a pre-employment physical, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided recently.
Titan Tire offered Michael Ollie a job contingent on passing a physical examination, during which Ollie indicated that he had asthma. The doctor checked the box on the examination form that stated: "The examinee is medically able to do the essential functions of the job with accommodations listed below," where the doctor wrote: "Pt. has asthma. May have difficulty in areas [with] dust or fumes."
According to the normal procedure, the doctor's staff reported Ollie's examination findings to the company by telephone. Following that phone call, the employer's human resource representative wrote on Ollie's application, "Asthma, no working where dust or fumes."
After some discussion, the HR representatives determined that because there was no place in the plant that did not have dust or fumes, there was no job available for Ollie.
Ollie successfully sued Titan under the Americans with Disabilities Act. On appeal, the employer argued that Ollie had not established that the company regarded him as disabled from working in a broad range of jobs, but only as medically unable to work in its plant.
The 8th Circuit upheld the trial court's ruling, noting that the decision makers believed that not only all manufacturing and warehouse jobs in their plant, but all such jobs in the entire local area, would involve working around dust and fumes. What's more, the court said, the company had not lawfully relied on its doctor's advice, but rather on its own faulty transcription and misinterpretation of that advice, which caused it to conclude "that Ollie could not perform all essential functions of any available job."
RELATED ARTICLE: Professional Pointer
As illustrated by this case, as well as Echazabal and Schufer--both summarized in this column--the results of pre-employment physicals can properly support decisions to deny employment to certain applicants, but employers must exercise caution in their use. Establish consistent standards and procedures regarding what applicant medical information is communicated to the employer, how and when it is communicated, and how decisions are made based on that information. For example, the company in this case might have made a better judgment if it had waited for the medical opinion to be transmitted in writing.
BY MARGARET M. CLARK, J.D., SPHR, SENIOR LEGAL EDITOR FOR HR MAGAZINE.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Society for Human Resource Management
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