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[Krauel v. Iowa Methodist Med. Ctr., 95 F.3d 674 (8th Cir. 1996).]
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the definition of major life activity in a case
involving a patient who claimed she was discriminated against by a medical care
practitioner because she had HIV. [Bragdon v. Abbott, 118 S. Ct. 2196, 141 L. Ed. 2d
540 (1998).] The defendant claimed that HIV was not a disability because the patient
was asymptomatic and thus there was no affect on any of her major life activities.
a) The Majority Opinion
The Court first considered whether the plaintiff was disabled as defined in the
ADA. The relevant section is 12102(2)(A) “a physical or mental impairment that
substantially limits one or more of the major life activities of such individual.”
Before discussing whether the plaintiff met this test, the Court indirectly addressed
the lower courts’ attempts to narrow the ADA by over restrictive readings of its
provisions. The Court noted that when Congress uses well- established terms, it
intends that they be construed in accordance with established interpretations, and
that this is explicit in the ADA: “Except as otherwise provided in this chapter,
nothing in this chapter shall be construed to apply a lesser standard than the
standards applied under title V of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (29 U.S.C. § 790
et seq.) or the regulations issued by Federal agencies pursuant to such title.”
The Court found that the plaintiff had to show three things: (1) that HIV was a
physical impairment; (2) that it affected some major life activity; and (3) that this
limitation be substantial. All of the judges’ opinions accepted that HIV infection,
irrespective of the symptoms, is a physical impairment as contemplated by the
ADA. The Court’s opinion goes into unnecessary length on the technical details of
HIV infection. (Although these are not necessary to its conclusions, most courts
cannot resist the temptation to lift scientific jargon from the briefs before them,
irrespective of whether it is relevant or even in evidence.)
The Court’s analysis is complicated by the politics of HIV-related disability
litigation. The position of AIDS rights organizations is that asymptomatic HIV
infection has no effect on the infected person’s ability to carry on day-to-day life
activities. This position is incompatible with the requirements of the ADA—if there
is no effect on a major life activity, then the physical impairment is not a covered
disability. However, conceding that asymptomatic HIV infection does have an
effect on major life activities means that employers and others might have a right to
know HIV status if its effect on major life activities might endanger others.
Plaintiff finessed this by focusing on her ability to bear children.
Defendant argued that reproduction, as the court termed it, was not a major life
activity as contemplated by the ADA. Defendant’s theory was that the ADA
required that the life function affected be of a public, economic, or daily character.
(Although not put in these terms, this essentially means that the disability be
related to the claimed discrimination.) In what may be the most significant part of
the opinion, the Court found that a major life activity need not be economic, public,
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