Chapter § 3-5 § 1630.5. Limiting, Segregating, and Classifying

• Jurisdiction: United States

3-5 § 1630.5. Limiting, Segregating, and Classifying

It is unlawful for a covered entity to limit, segregate, or classify a job applicant or employee in a way that adversely affects his or her employment opportunities or status on the basis of disability.

3-5:1 Commentary

This provision harkens back to the segregation by race that Title VII was designed to eliminate. Thus, the following actions would violate the ADA.

v Limiting the duties of an employee based upon a patronizing approach of what an employer believes is best for the employee or a presumption about the tasks an employee with a particular disability can perform.
v Reassigning employees with a disability, even as a reasonable accommodation, to certain isolated facilities or installations.
v Providing separate break rooms.
v Providing different access to health insurance. But it is permissible to limit an insurance policy to a certain number of treatments a year. Thus, a policy that limits the number of blood transfusions a year is lawful even if the limit falls more harshly on a person whose disability requires numerous transfusions, such as a hemophiliac.
• Anderson v. Gus Mayer Boston Store of Delaware, 924 F. Supp. 763 (E.D. Tex. 1996) (court holds that employer violates ADA where it changes group health care provider to an insurer that would never cover one employee in the group because of that employee's disability; court reasons there is a violation because it denies equal access to employee of benefit of employment).
• Caldwell v. KHOU-TV, 850 F. 3d 237 (5th Cir. 2017) (plaintiff argued that employer impermissibly limited and segregated him because of his disability by not assigning him to as many shifts in a certain position as it did other employees; Fifth Circuit rejects the argument, noting that 42 U.S.C. § 12112(b)(1) deals only with physical segregation, not segregation by job assignments).

The concept embodied in Feist v. Louisiana, 730 F.3d 450 (5th Cir. 2013) (see discussion below) is gaining traction and being expanded.

• Hill v. Assocs. for Renewal in Educ., Inc., No. 12-0823 (JDB), 2014 WL 12538946 (D.D.C. July 27, 2018) (appellate court rejects argument that no reasonable accommodation was

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