On Friday, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment in an ADA and §1985 conspiracy action brought against a hospital by a former nurse of a group physician practice which had employed her. Post v. Trinity Health-Michigan, No. 21-2844 (6th Cir. 8/12/22). After her employer terminated her (claiming budgetary reasons) and filed for bankruptcy, the nurse filed suit against the hospital where her had performed her duties alleging that she had been terminated on account of her disability and that the hospital had interfered with her ADA rights and conspired with her employer to terminate her in violation of the ADA. The Courts found that the ADA – including the interference clause – only applied to employers, which the Hospital was not. Further, it similarly concluded that §1985 only applied to constitutional causes of action and certain protected classes and could not overlap with statutory causes of action under the ADA. “[A] plaintiff can assert a claim of interference with employment-related rights under § 12203(b) only against an employer (or the few other entities listed in 42 U.S.C. § 2000e[1]5(b)).”
According to the Court’s opinion, the plaintiff nurse had
been employed by the defendant hospital for a number of years. However, the hospital outsourced her
department to a physician group practice, terminated her employment and she
continued to work in the same rooms, but for the group practice instead of the
hospital. At some point, she suffered a
concussion while at work, received workers compensation and attempted to
recover enough to return to work.
However, she lost her hospital privileges while she was off work and
neither her employer, nor the hospital would permit her to practice her craft in
a simulation room prior to returning to work as suggested by her treating
physician. Her employer also would not certify her
ability to return to work under the circumstances as necessary to regain her
hospital privileges. Ultimately, she was
terminated by the practice for budgetary reasons and the practice filed for
bankruptcy shortly thereafter. Unable to
sue her employer, she brought suit against the Hospital for interfering with
her ADA rights and for conspiring to deprive her of rights under the ADA. Oddly
enough, she never alleged that the hospital was a joint employer with the group
practice.
The ADA’s interference clause does not explicitly apply to
employers:
It shall be unlawful to coerce, intimidate, threaten, or interfere with any individual in the exercise or enjoyment of, or on account of his or her having exercised or enjoyed, or on account of his or her having aided or encouraged any other individual in the exercise or enjoyment of, any right granted or protected by this chapter. 42 U.S.C. § 12203(b).
It also applies to other ADA sections governing the
government and public accommodations. Could
this, for example, apply to people who illegally park in spaces reserved for
the handicapped? However, the Court found the structure of the ADA and the remedial section’s incorporation by
reference to Title VII (which only applies to employers) clarified that the
interference clause only applied to employers (and others not at issue in this
litigation).
Both the plain text of the ADA and our precedent on a related question rebut [the plaintiff’s] boundless reading. These sources instead demonstrate that, in this employment setting, the interference provision authorizes suits only against employers (and a few other entities that are irrelevant in this case).
. . . .
To summarize things in reverse: Title VII permits suit only against employers (and a few other irrelevant entities). 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(b), (f)(1). The ADA’s employment subchapter adopts Title VII’s remedial framework. Id. § 12117(a). And the ADA’s interference provision, in turn, adopts the employment subchapter’s remedial framework when a suit raises an employment complaint. Id. § 12203(c). The statutory chain of cross-references thus leaves no doubt that the interference provision in § 12203(b) likewise permits suit only against employers.
The Court also analogized the interference section to the
retaliation section, which applies to “persons,” which the Court had earlier
held only applied to employers. While
the Court indicated that it might have been willing to entertain a
joint-employer theory, she never alleged such a theory and thus, waived that
argument.
Section 1985 is a reconstruction era statute signed by
President Grant to fight the KKK. One
of its long clauses, contains a 255-word sentence creating a damages action
against those who, as relevant here, “conspire” “for the purpose of depriving”
“any person or class of persons” of “the equal protection of the laws” or
“equal privileges and immunities under the laws[.]” 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3).”
This claim fails because [the plaintiff] has not shown that any conspiracy deprived her of the “equal protection of the laws” or the “equal privileges and immunities under the laws[.]” 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3). To avoid turning § 1985(3) into a generic tort law covering any injury inflicted by two parties, the Supreme Court has interpreted these two phrases to require “some racial, or perhaps otherwise class-based, invidiously discriminatory animus behind the conspirators’ action.” . . . But our court has substantially limited any non-race-based theory. We have held that § 1985(3) reaches only conspiracies targeting a person based on a classification (like racial discrimination) that would receive heightened scrutiny under the Supreme Court’s equal-protection framework. See . . . . Unfortunately for [the plaintiff], this holding means that § 1985(3) does not “cover” conspiracies grounded in “disability-based discrimination” because that type of discrimination is subject to deferential rational-basis review.
The Court refused to consider differing precedent in other
Circuits without a superior decision from the en banc court or the
Supreme Court. In any event, §1985
typically requires some action by the state (i.e., government) to have a cause
of action, but the nurse had only sued a private hospital. In addition, the Supreme Court had
previously “cautioned against allowing a plaintiff to use § 1985(3) to enforce
a right” that was governed and precluded by Title VII “when the remedial limits
in that statute would bar the plaintiff from suing directly under it.”
NOTICE: This summary is designed merely to inform and alert
you of recent legal developments. It does not constitute legal advice and does
not apply to any particular situation because different facts could lead to
different results. Information here can change or be amended without notice.
Readers should not act upon this information without legal advice. If you have
any questions about anything you have read, you should consult with or retain
an employment attorney.
