Peter Blanck
2003
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Encountering risk is an element of everyday life experience. Assessing and accepting risks within reason are basic elements of personal independence and the exercise of adult responsibility. Congress understood this and acknowledged in the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) that discrimination takes many forms, including paternalism and stereotyping.
Perhaps the most long-standing and insidious aspect of this type of discrimination is the assumption that people with disabilities are not competent to make informed, wise, or safe life choices. This myth is most apparent and damaging in the employment context. Thus, the exclusion of qualified people with disabilities from jobs, on the basis of an employer-determined risk of danger to themselves, is an impermissible act of paternalism.
Regulations to ADA Title I issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), however, permit an employer to refuse to hire a person with a disability if the individual would pose a direct threat to the health or safety of the individual. In 2002, the Supreme Court decided Chevron v. Echazabal, a case in which Chevron refused to hire an individual with asymptomatic Hepatitis C on the grounds that the workplace might exacerbate his condition. The Court ruled in favor of Chevron, endorsing the EEOCs definition of direct threat, which includes a threat to ones own health or safety.
The ramifications of the Chevron decision are beginning to surface in lower federal court cases. The initial determinations confirm the concerns of people with disabilities that employers increasingly will use the direct-threat defense to deny employment to qualified people with disabilities.
Mario Echazabal personified the situation the ADA was intended to prevent paternalism that results in exclusion and isolation. If Chevron could deny employment to Mario Echazabal, who had worked in Chevrons oil refineries for twenty years with no degradation to his health, the employment outlook may be worse for people with symptomatic disabilities who have not had an opportunity to demonstrate they can perform jobs safely.
This paper is divided into several parts. Part II provides a case synopsis. Part III sets out the legal disposition of the Chevron case: the facts, U.S. Supreme Court ruling, and issues on remand to the Ninth Circuit. Part IV examines the implications of the Supreme Courts Chevron decision for ADA law and disability policy and makes recommendations to align the definition of direct threat with Congressional intent. The paper concludes with a post-script describing the practical effects of the Chevron decision on Mario Echazabal and its ramifications for other individuals with disabilities.
https://disability.law.uiowa.edu/lhpdc/publications/documents/blanckdocs/NCD_Echazabal.pdf
Peter Blanck. (February 2003). Topic Paper: Righting the ADA No. 9 Chevron v. Echazabal: The ADA’s “Direct Threat to Self” Defense, Prepared for the National Council on Disability, Washington, DC
Keywords: Americans with Disabilities Act