ADA associational discrimination case fails

The Americans with Disabilities Act makes it illegal to fire someone because of their association with someone who is disabled. These claims are infrequently decided in the Court of Appeals, however. This case raises that issue, but the plaintiff loses the case on summary judgment, and the Second Circuit affirms that dismissal.

The case is Blanton v. Education Affiliates, a summary order issued on May 12. Plaintiff was Campus President of St. Paul's School of Nursing in Staten Island. The school had a problem: it's passage rate for the nursing licensing exam was too low, which is why the state had denied the school permanent-degree-granting authority. Without that authority, the school will have a difficult time functioning. Plaintiff's job was to increase the passage rate to at least 75%. When plaintiff was fired, the school said it was because the pass rate had not improved on his watch.

Plaintiff said he was really fired because the school did not want to pay his wife's medical bills amounting to more than $200,000. That's the associational discrimination theory under the ADA. For a good summary of how these claims work, see Kelleher v. Fred A. Cook, Inc., 939 F.3d 465 (2d Cir. 2019). 

These competing motives are not enough to avoid summary judgment. Why? Because the Second Circuit (Wesley, Bianco and Perez) says the uncontroverted evidence is that, from the outset of plaintiff's employment as Campus President, "the primary focus of his job was improving the school's passage rate on the licensing exam." Plaintiff admitted this in deposition. He was also repeatedly warned that the passage rate needed to improve substantially. But that did not happen, the Court says. In contrast to this evidence, no one had ever questioned plaintiff about any medical costs the school was incurring as a result of his wife's medical issues. While plaintiff points to a text message that he sent to management that made reference to his wife's hospitalization, which he says supports the inference that the school knew about his wife's "long-term hospitalization and medical issues for which high cost is readily inferable." That argument cannot avoid summary judgment, the Court says, as it is too speculative and conjectural.