Important ruling on disability discrimination and test-taking

This disability discrimination case asks whether the plaintiff, who is hearing-impaired, may sue the MTA for denying him American Sign Language assistance for an examination that tested him on the Assistant Stockworker position. While the MTA gave him written instructions on how to take the test, plaintiff was denied the ASL accommodation. Plaintiff failed the test but claims that the ASL accommodation would have interpreted the test and its instructions in a manner that would have allowed him to pass. Plaintiff loses the case.

The case is Williams v. MTA, issued on August 12. This case was brought under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which offers similar protections to the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits employment discrimination against qualified disabled individuals, and which requires a reasonable accommodation that allows employees to perform an essential function of the job. We have a series of holdings in this case, which took more than a year for the Court to decide following oral argument, as this case raises a few issues of first impression. 

First, the Court (Raggi, Carney and Cabranes) holds that a disability discrimination plaintiff must show he was qualified for the desired position. Plaintiff argues that job applicants raising failure-to-accommodate claims under the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act do not have to show they can perform the essential job function, and that he only has to prove that he was eligible to take the pre-employment test. Not so, says the Court of Appeals, which holds that since the ADA says that only "qualified individuals" who can perform the essential functions of the job can win their disability discrimination claims, that requirement guides the statute as a whole, even if other portions of the ADA do not use that phrase. Bottom line: Congress wanted qualified individuals to be eligible for relief under the statute. The ADA and Rehabilitation Act are both structured to reflect that legislative intent. Under this ruling, "qualified individual" is now incorporated into all subparts of 42 U.S.C. 12112(b).

Second, a job applicant must meet the requirements for the job. It is not enough to argue that, in the context of the testing accommodations, the applicant is able to perform the essential functions of test-taking. While plaintiff argues that allowing the MTA to refuse to provide reasonable accommodations during the test would greenlight discrimination for deeming a candidate not qualified for the position under some post-hoc justification, the relevant inquiry is whether the plaintiff was qualified for the position. Summarizing its holdings up until this point in the ruling, the Court says that pre-employment test-taking is not an "employment position" for which plaintiff was a "qualified individual."

Third, plaintiff was not qualified for the position. Under the ADA, you are qualified for the job if you can perform the essential job functions with or without a reasonable accommodation. The job position listed certain professional and educational qualifications. It also said that applicants can get around this by showing they have the "satisfactory equivalent of education and experience." Plaintiff does not meet the list requirements, and he provided no evidence that he had the satisfactory equivalents.

What about the City law claim? We all know the New York City HRL provides greater protections than federal law. Plaintiff interprets the statute to mean that, for MTA to win the case, it must show he was not only unable to satisfy the essential job functions but that he could not enjoy the right of taking the pre-employment test with a reasonable accommodation. The Court rejects this interpretation and finds that even under the City law, plaintiffs must show they are qualified for the position. Since the Court finds that plaintiff was not qualified for the position, he loses under the City law.