Dive Brief:
- An oncologist failed to show that his former employer discriminated against him on the basis of disability in part because his burnout did not qualify as a disability under relevant federal laws, a Colorado federal judge held Wednesday.
- The plaintiff in Peddada v. Catholic Health Initiatives Colorado alleged that his termination violated the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. But because his burnout did not substantially impair major life activities — and because it was transitory and minor — it did not rise to the level of a disability as defined by either law, the judge found.
- Congress, in passing the ADA Amendments Act of 2008, intended to broaden the scope of the law’s disability definition to favor expansive coverage, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. But EEOC has said that “not every impairment will constitute a disability,” and recent federal court decisions, like Peddada, demonstrate the definition’s limits.
Dive Insight:
The ADA, as amended, defines disability to include any physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities. It is inclusive of employees who either have a record of such an impairment or are regarded as having a disability. Federal regulators have said that the law’s definition is intended to be construed broadly, though courts have at times declined to view certain conditions as covered.
In Peddada, the court examined a list of major life activities and whether the plaintiff’s burnout substantially limited any one of them. The list included sleeping, thinking, concentrating and communicating, each of which the plaintiff cited in his complaint. In doing so, the judge relied on testimony from the plaintiff’s expert witness as well as another physician’s clinical evaluation.
The court noted that the plaintiff’s witness did not conclude that his burnout affected his sleep. On the other three activities, the judge cited the clinical evaluation of the plaintiff, which determined that neither thinking, concentrating nor communicating had been impaired.
To the extent that the plaintiff and his expert witness believed these three functions were impaired, “both implicitly concede that these functions were only impaired as to the performance of his specific job of being a radiation oncologist,” the court said. The plaintiff could not show that his burnout affected his life activities outside of when he performed his duties, and he did not assert that his major life activity of working was substantially impaired.
“In so doing, this Court respectfully makes clear that such a ruling should not be construed as a conclusion that professional burn-out can never, as a matter of law, be found as a disability; rather, this conclusion is driven by this particular factual record,” the judge said.
It’s not the first time in recent months that a plaintiff has failed to show that a health condition met the ADA’s criteria. Last February, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that a truck driver’s heart condition did not qualify as such because it did not limit a major life activity, relying in part on the account of a nurse who examined the plaintiff and that of his cardiologist.
The 2nd Circuit came to a similar conclusion in 2020 regarding an employee who complained of job-related stress that caused migraines, noting that even if the plaintiff’s ability to work had been impaired, he could have performed the same job sufficiently if he had been given a different supervisor. And in 2023, the 4th Circuit held that a plaintiff who had arthritis in one of his toes did not qualify under the ADA because his condition did not impair his ability to walk.
Conversely, courts also have interpreted the ADA widely to include certain health conditions that do affect an employee’s major life activities. Earlier this month, EEOC argued in an amicus brief that a former FedEx employee’s hemorrhoid condition could be considered a disability because it caused pain that affected his ability to stand, walk and sit.
