Proving Disability in the Performance of Manual Tasks: the Supreme Court's Latest Ada Decision

• Publication year: 2002
• Pages: 0001

Georgia Bar Journal Volume 8.

GSB Vol. 8, No. 1, Pg. 1. Proving Disability in the Performance of Manual Tasks: The Supreme Court's Latest ADA Decision

Georgia State Bar Journal
Vol. 8, No. 1, August 2002

"Proving Disability in the Performance of Manual Tasks: The Supreme Court's Latest ADA Decision"

By Warren R. Hall Jr. and Emily S. Sanford

Besides the U.S. Tax Code, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)1 is one of the most logistically confusing, but widely applicable statutes. The ADA's ideal is simple enough: prohibit discrimination against disabled persons Nevertheless, in practice, the ADA has been a seemingly unending source of ambiguity and uncertainty. Bit by bit however, the Supreme Court has stemmed the tide of confusion In January 2002, the Court issued a decision in Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky v. Williams, clarifying in part a previously muddled aspect of the ADA: defining disability on the basis of an impaired ability to perform manual tasks.2 A complete and accurate understanding of Toyota, including an appreciation for the limitations of its holdings, is essential to any attorney in Georgia (or elsewhere) practicing law under Title I of the ADA.3 This is true for several key reasons. First, defining a disability is a threshold inquiry for virtually every ADA employment case. Before even tackling complex subjects like "essential functions," "reasonable accommodation" or "direct threat," practitioners must first evaluate whether there exists a "disability" in the first place. If not, the ADA inquiry is concluded

Second, the number of potential ADA manual task cases in the workforce is staggering. In 1999, employees reported almost 28,000 injuries due to carpal tunnel syndrome alone.4 Lawyers practicing in the field of ADA employment law who have not yet addressed a manual task issue are overdue.

Third, unlike traditionally understood major life activities such as walking, seeing or hearing, all manual tasks are not necessarily major life activities under the ADA. "Manual tasks" is simply a semantic categorization of activities performed by people with their hands. Some manual tasks may constitute a major life activity, while others may not.

The goal of this article is not to provide an in-depth analysis of the ADA as a whole, but rather to introduce the reader to Toyota, placing it in the context of the ever-changing landscape of the ADA, and to explore some of the practical implications of the decision for Georgia lawyers.

SHAPING THE DEFINITION OF DISABILITY

Since the ADA's enactment in 1990, the Supreme Court has shaped the contours of the definition of the term "disability," sometimes interpreting the Act broadly and sometimes narrowly.5 In recent years, the Court has narrowed the scope of the ADA's coverage. In a 1999 trilogy of cases, the Court bucked the overwhelming weight of authority in the Courts of Appeals and the regulations of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) by holding that mitigating, corrective measures must be considered in determining whether or not an employee is disabled under the ADA.6 These decisions raised the bar - often to an unpassable level - for many ADA plaintiffs. It is no coincidence that in fiscal year 2000, the number of ADA charges received by the EEOC dropped to the lowest number since fiscal year 1993 - the first full year of EEOC enforcement.7

In Toyota, the Court again entered the disability definition fracas, this time addressing important and confusing questions surrounding whether and to what extent limitations in performing manual tasks can constitute a disability under the ADA. In keeping with its recent trend, the Court once again restricted the scope of what is a disability under the ADA.

Before exploring the details of Toyota, one must first understand the concept of "disability" within the meaning of the ADA. The ADA offers protection in an employment context only to qualified individuals with disabilities. The threshold issue for evaluating any employment claim under the ADA is whether the subject individual suffers from a "disability" as defined under the ADA. The ADA defines "disability" as any one of the following: "(A) a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities of [an] individual; (B) a record of such an impairment; or August 2002 13 (C) being regarded as having such an impairment."8 In common parlance, a claimant must either have a disability, have a record of a disability, or be regarded as having a disability in order to state a claim for violation of Title I of the ADA.

The precise meaning of the terms that comprise the definition of "disability" under the ADA are themselves nowhere defined in the Act itself. The viability of every ADA employment case hinges first on whether the plaintiff has a physical or mental "impairment" that "substantially limits" a "major life activity." Either unable or unwilling to reach agreement on the meaning of the three terms which form the cornerstone of the Act, Congress left these issues to be resolved by the courts.9 Hence the confusion, and hence the steady trickle of ADA cases reaching the Supreme Court's docket.

TOYOTA MOTOR MANUFACTURING, KENTUCKY V. WILLIAMS

Williams, the plaintiff in Toyota, who had worked as an assembly line worker at one of Toyota's manufacturing plants, developed carpal tunnel syndrome and requested an accommodation of her condition. Toyota placed Williams on a quality control inspection team and, for a couple of years, she rotated on a weekly basis between two tasks assigned to her team. In 1996, Toyota altered the quality control inspection job to require employees to rotate through all of the tasks associated with the quality control process. Her revised job required Williams to perform tasks holding her hands and arms around shoulder height for several hours at a time while applying oil to cars at a rate of one car per minute. Shortly after this task was added to her rotations, Williams began experiencing pain in her neck and shoulders and was diagnosed with a form of tendonitis and carpal tunnel syndrome. Williams requested that Toyota accommodate her medical condition by allowing her to avoid the tasks which caused her difficulty. Toyota did not grant the request for accommodation and subsequently discharged Williams for poor attendance.10

Williams sued Toyota under the ADA, alleging, among other things, that the company failed to reasonably accommodate her disability and terminated her employment because of her disability. Williams based her disability claim on the ground that her physical impairments substantially limited her in the following activities, all of which she argued constitute major life activities under the Act: (1) manual tasks; (2) housework; (3) gardening; (4) playing with her children; (5) lifting; and (6) working.11

The district court granted summary judgment for Toyota, finding that Williams was not disabled under the Act. While she had suffered from a physical impairment, that impairment did not qualify as a disability because it had not substantially limited her ability to engage in any major life activity.12 The court rejected Williams's contention that gardening, doing housework and playing with children are major life activities. And, although the court agreed that performing manual tasks and working are major life activities, it found the evidence presented by Williams insufficient to demonstrate that she was substantially limited in these activities.13

On appeal, the Sixth Circuit took a different view. It reversed the grant of summary judgment, finding that Williams was substantially limited in the major life activity of performing manual tasks because her condition prevented her from being able to perform a class of jobs that require the gripping of tools and repetitive work with her hands and arms extended above shoulder-level for extended periods of time (e.g., manual assembly-line jobs, manual product-handling jobs and manual building-trade jobs, such as painting, plumbing, roofing, etc.). In reaching this decision, the Sixth Circuit disregarded evidence that Williams could take care of her personal hygiene and engage in personal and household chores, stating that such evidence did not affect a determination that her medical condition substantially limited her ability to perform "'the range of manual tasks associated with an assembly line job.'"14

The United States Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari to the Sixth Circuit to consider the proper standard for assessing whether an individual is substantially limited in performing manual tasks. The Supreme Court ultimately reversed the Sixth Circuit's determination that Williams was disabled and held that she was not substantially limited in performing manual tasks at the time she requested an accommodation. In reaching this conclusion, the Court engaged in a two-fold analysis.15 First, the Court examined the concept of what constitutes a major life activity. Second, the Court considered the degree to which an individual's ability to engage in a major life activity must be impaired in order to rise to the level of "substantially limited."

Defining the Major Life Activity of Performing Manual Tasks -

Interestingly, the Toyota Court took little time evaluating whether "manual tasks" can qualify as a major life activity. The Court instead focused its attention on the obvious fact that not all manual tasks rise to the level of major life activities: "In order for performing manual tasks to fit into [this] category [of major life activities] - a category that includes such basic abilities as walking, seeing, and hearing - the manual...