Judge Sotomayor's Legal Record: Federal Anti-Discrimination Protections
July 2009
Americans With Disabilities Act ( ADA)
Judge Sotomayor has not presided over many cases raising ADA claims, but several of the cases in which she wrote opinions are notable because they demonstrate Judge Sotomayor's careful review of the record and respect for the rights of the disabled. There was no testimony of note about ADA or other disability-related issues at her confirmation hearing.
In Bartlett v. New York State Board of Law Examiners,[1] Judge Sotomayor went through a voluminous record and a painstaking analysis. The plaintiff in this case, a woman who had a learning disability, claimed she was denied reasonable accommodations in taking the bar exam. Judge Sotomayor found that the plaintiff was disabled under the ADA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, a conclusion that was affirmed by the Second Circuit.[2]
In EEOC v. J.B. Hunt Transp.,[3] Judge Sotomayor also exhaustively reviewed the record and would have allowed plaintiffs to bring their ADA claims to a jury. In this case, the EEOC sued J.B. Hunt Transportation under the Americans with Disabilities Act for refusing to hire over-the-road truck drivers who used certain prescription medications with side effects that might impair driving ability. The district court granted summary judgment for the defendants, finding that J.B. Hunt denied the plaintiffs' over-the-road driving positions because of their use of medications with potentially harmful side effects, not as a result of their disability. A majority of the Second Circuit panel affirmed. Judge Sotomayor filed a dissenting opinion in which she stated that the EEOC produced significant evidence that J.B. Hunt regarded the applicants as substantially limited in the major life activity of working as truck drivers in general, and thus as disabled.[4]
In Norville v. Staten Island Univ. Hospital, [5] a 56-year-old African American woman terminated from her position as a hospital nurse brought claims of race, age, and disability discrimination. After taking a medical leave of absence, the hospital was willing to offer the nurse only positions that would require her to lose seniority or work part-time (prior to her leave, she worked full-time). When a full-time position opened that would have permitted her to keep seniority, the hospital gave the position to a younger Hispanic male nurse.[6]Judge Sotomayor, writing for a Second Circuit panel, reversed a jury verdict in favor of the hospital on the disability claim, because the district court incorrectly instructed the jury on the standard for disability accommodation. Her opinion made the important point that reassignment to a less desirable position does not constitute a reasonable accommodation under the ADA when the employee's former position is available. Judge Sotomayor found that the district court's failure to provide such an instruction was reversible error.
In Parker v. Columbia Pictures Indus.,[7]a former employee claimed that his employer terminated him after he took disability leave for a back injury. The district court determined that the plaintiff had not made out a prima facie case under the ADA - the court held that he had not demonstrated that he was able to perform the essential functions of the job and he had not established that he was terminated "because of" his disability. Writing for the Second Circuit panel, Judge Sotomayor first found that the statements on the plaintiff's application for disability benefits, in which he indicated serious physical difficulties, did not require summary judgment because the statements were not directly in conflict and the plaintiff provided an adequate explanation for the tension between the two statements. Second, although the ADA does not contain an express mixed-motive provision, Judge Sotomayor determined that claims brought under the ADA were subject to the mixed-motive analysis available in the Title VII context. At the time of the decision, every court of appeals to consider this issue was an agreement with this analysis.[8] But the recent Supreme Court decision, Gross v. FBL Financial Serv.,[9]which held that a plaintiff under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act may not rely on a mixed-motive analysis and instead must prove "that age was the but-for cause of the challenged adverse employment action,"[10]may call this conclusion into question. Like the recent Supreme Court decision in Ricci, however, there would be no way for the court of appeals to have anticipated that the Supreme Court would disturb longstanding court of appeals interpretations of antidiscrimination law.
[1] 970 F. Supp. 1094 (S.D.N.Y. 1997), rev'd in part 156 F.3d 321 (2d. Cir. 1998).
[2] Judge Sotomayor dismissed plaintiff's claims for violation of due process and equal protection. 970 F. Supp. 1094. This conclusion was not reviewed by the Second Circuit. See 156 F.3d 321 (2d. Cir. 1998). The Second Circuit vacated the damages award on the grounds that Judge Sotomayor had granted damages for expenses incurred in connection with bar examinations where the plaintiff did not seek accommodations. The panel then remanded for a revised calculation of damages. See 156 F.3d 321 at 332.
[3] 321 F.3d 69 (2d Cir. 2003).
[4] Id. at 79 (Sotomayor, J., dissenting).
[5] 196 F.3d 89 (2d Cir. 1999).
[6] Judge Sotomayor affirmed the district court's grants of judgment against the plaintiff on the race and age discrimination claims, a conclusion amply supported by the law and the facts in this case.
[7] 204 F.3d 326 (2d Cir. 2000)
[8] Id. at 336-37 (listing cases).
[9] No. 08-441 (June 18, 2009).
[10] Id. at *12.