From household bathrooms to the workplace: bringing the Americans with Disabilities Act back to where it belongs: an analysis of Toyota Motor Manufacturing v. Williams.

• Author: Ulgen, Argun M.

INTRODUCTION

Ella Williams has endured the following impairments over the past ten years: bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome, (1) myotendinitis and myositis bilateral, and thoracic outlet compression. (2) Williams's carpal tunnel syndrome could lead to muscle atrophy and extreme sensory deficits. (3) Her other conditions are equally unpleasant: myotendinitis bilateral perscapular is an inflammation of the muscles and tendons around both shoulder blades; (4) myotendinitis and myositis bilateral affects the forearms by causing median nerve irritation, (5) and thoracic outlet compression is characterized by pain in the nerve leading to the upper extremities. (6) As a result of these afflictions, Williams needs help getting dressed. (7) She cannot drive long distances with her family. (8) She cannot garden as much as she would like, has quit dancing, and must limit her participation in other recreational activities. (9) She cannot sweep the floors of her home. (10) Most importantly, Williams must limit the time she spends playing with her children. (11)

Although Ella Williams's impairments resulted in several changes in her lifestyle, she still wanted to be a productive citizen in the workforce. (12) Williams's employer, Toyota Motor Manufacturing, made a small adjustment to her work schedule, and assigned Williams to tasks that did not require any activity that could worsen her impairments. (13) While she was not able to frequently lift objects weighing ten pounds or more, constantly extend her wrists or elbows, maintain her arms above her shoulders for extended periods of time, or use vibratory tools, she proved valuable in other jobs within the workplace. (14) For three years, Williams was assigned to the assembly line to scan products for flaws. (15) Throughout that time, her employer said her performance was Satisfactory. (16)

In 1996, however, Toyota Motor Manufacturing revamped its policies to require those who worked in Williams's division to do certain physical tasks. (17) Those tasks worsened Williams's impairments. (18) Williams took several days off from work due to severe pain. (19) Eventually, according to Williams, she was fired because of her inability to perform these tasks. (20) In response, she sued Toyota Motor Manufacturing for discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA" or "Act"). (21)

Under the ADA, Toyota Motor Manufacturing is required to provide Williams with "reasonable accommodations" (22) for her "known physical or mental limitations," (23) if Williams is "an otherwise qualified individual with a disability," (24) provided that the accommodation does not pose an "undue hardship" on the business. (25) In Toyota Motor Manufacturing v. Williams, (26) the Supreme Court had to decide whether Williams was disabled under the ADA as a matter of law. (27) Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote the opinion for a unanimous Court, holding that she was not. (28) The effect of this decision is that Williams, a seven-year Toyota employee, may lose her job permanently. The severe combination of impairments she has incurred has not been interpreted as a disability under the ADA. Justice O'Connor's "strict" interpretation (29) of the ADA may bar many employees with impairments similar to Williams who request reasonable workplace accommodation from pursuing lawsuits under the ADA because they do not fit within the ADA definition of being disabled. (30)

In deciding that Williams was not disabled under the ADA, Justice O'Connor was most concerned with deferring to the "legislative findings and purposes that motivate the Act." (31) Recognizing that Congress cited forty-three million people as being disabled, (32) Justice O'Connor justified her strict interpretation of the ADA as follows: "If Congress intended everyone with a physical impairment that precluded the performance of some isolated, unimportant, or particularly difficult manual task to qualify as disabled, the number of disabled Americans would surely have been much higher." (33) On its face, this argument seems plausible. An analysis of the economic remedial goals that Congress sought to achieve with the ADA, however, illustrates that Congress intended to allow thousands of people like Ella Williams to overcome "stereotypic assumptions not truly indicative of individual ability" (34) and contribute to the economy by attaining "economic self-sufficiency." (35)

The purpose of this Comment is two-fold. First, it will analyze how the Supreme Court's treatment of the ADA in Toyota Motor Manufacturing deviated from the economic goals that Congress targeted when it passed the ADA, and argue that plaintiffs such as Ella Williams are exactly whom Congress had in mind when enacting the ADA. In accordance with Congress's intent under Title I of the ADA, "to provide clear, strong, consistent, and enforceable standards addressing discrimination against individuals," (36) this Comment then attempts to establish a clearer, more formal definition of disability, centered on Congress's remedial economic purposes in enacting the ADA.

Part I of this Comment will discuss the background of the ADA, concentrating on the Act's economic goals and their relation to the intended interpretation of the term "disability." Part II discusses in detail the Supreme Court's decision in Toyota Motor Manufacturing, contrasting the congressional intent behind the ADA with its recent flawed interpretation by the Court. Finally, Part III attempts to create a clearer test to guide courts in interpreting the term "disability" to conform to Congress's intent.

1. BACKGROUND OF THE ADA

   1. General Statutory Provisions of the ADA

      In Toyota Motor Manufacturing, the Court analyzed the definition of the term "disability" under the ADA. (37) The ADA defines disability as an impairment that substantially limits a major life activity. (38) If an ADA plaintiff proves that she is disabled, she must then show that she would still be qualified for the job in question. The ADA defines a "qualified individual with a disability" as "an individual with a disability who, with or without reasonable accommodation, can perform essential functions of the employment position that such individual holds or desires." (39) Once an ADA plaintiff establishes that she is a "qualified disabled" individual, (40) it must be shown that a reasonable accommodation can be established by the employer, without an undue hardship on the business. (41)

   2. Economic Circumstances That Led to the Passage of the ADA

      A primary purpose of the ADA was to create more full-time employment opportunities for the disabled. (42) Numerous studies throughout the mid-to-late 1980s indicated that of all the "discrete and insular" (43) minorities, disabled individuals (44) were by far the most economically disadvantaged. (45) About two-thirds of working-age individuals with disabilities are not working, a number that exceeded that of all other demographic groups under age sixty-five of any significant size, including young African-Americans, a group often singled out as having an extremely high unemployment rate. (46) The number of underemployed disabled people was even higher. (47) There was no concrete business reason, however, as to why so many disabled people were either unemployed or underemployed-with over two-thirds of all disabled people interviewed expressing a desire to become full-time employees. (48) Further, disabled individuals employed full-time maintained above-average work attendance and productivity. (49) Studies also indicated that employer fears about expensive insurance premiums or modifications to the worksite have proven unfounded. (50) These facts led to the conclusion that discrimination was the primary reason for the exclusion of disabled individuals from the workplace. (51)

      The extraordinarily high number of unemployed disabled individuals leads to unfortunate results. The National Council on the Handicapped noted that twenty percent of working-age people with disabilities lived in poverty as of 1988. (52) Further, during this period, approximately half the people with disabilities were living in households having an annual income of $15,000 or less--double the percentage of people without disabilities who had such low incomes. (53)

      Studies also reflected that although disabled individuals were willing to find work, the type of work available was limited because forty percent of disabled people have not finished high school, (54) and an even smaller percentage of these individuals completed college. (55) As a result, many disabled people took jobs in unskilled labor fields, typically jobs involving physical tasks that, without reasonable and cost-effective accommodations, were not available to "otherwise qualified" individuals. (56)

      By 1990, the high level of unemployment and poverty among disabled individuals contributed to high levels of federal government spending on social welfare programs. Congressional research on the effect of disability discrimination on government spending generally concluded "discrimination results in dependency on social welfare programs that cost the taxpayers unnecessary billions of dollars each year." (57) Sandy Parrino, the chairwoman of the National Council on Disability, testified that discrimination places people with disabilities in "chains," making such dependency "a major and totally unnecessary contributor to public deficits and private expenditures.'" (58) Further, President George H. W. Bush stated:

      On the cost side, the National Council on the Handicapped states that current ... spending on disability benefits and programs exceeds $60 billion annually. Excluding the millions of disabled who want to work from the employment ranks costs society literally billions of dollars annually in support payments and lost income tax revenues. (59) A central goal behind the ADA was to increase the supply of qualified workers. President Bush summarized the argument as...