Federal Court Recognizes HIV Confidentiality Claim Under ADA

U.S. District Judge Aleta A. Trauger of Tennessee ruled on January 14 that the Ford Motor Credit Company may have violated the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) when a supervisor who learned that an employee was HIV-positive spread the word to other workers without the employee’s permission. Trauger’s January 14 decision in EEOC v. Ford Motor Credit Company, 2008 Westlaw 152780 (M.D. Tenn.), denied a motion to dismiss the "John Doe" plaintiff’s claim that Ford had violated the medical confidentiality provisions of the Act.

Doe began working for Ford in 2000, and was diagnosed with HIV in 2002. His primary care physician enrolled him in a study at Vanderbilt Comprehensive Care Center, which required him to report to the Center on weekdays to have blood drawn. Doe’s participation in the study paid for his HIV medications. Doe did not want anybody in the workplace to know about his HIV infection.

Doe was concerned about telling his supervisor the reason why he would need to be absent from work, because he believed she was a gossip who could not be trusted to keep such information confidential. Instead, he approached a higher level manager to ask for a scheduling accommodation so he could participate in the study. The manager insisted on being told the nature of Doe’s "medical condition." Doe expressed reluctance due to confidentiality concerns, but after being assured the information would be confidential, Doe disclosed his HIV status to the manager. The manager immediately referred him to an occupational health nurse, an independent contractor retained by Ford to administer benefits and receive confidential medical information of this type to be held apart from workplace records.

The nurse advised Doe that he was not required to reveal the nature of his medical condition to supervisors or managers at Ford, and that all information should be channeled though her.

Several weeks later, the manager called Doe into his office, saying that Doe’s supervisor was giving the manager "a hard time" because he would not tell her why Doe was getting time off from work. Doe insisted he did not want to confide in this supervisor, and the manager acquiesced, but a few weeks later called in Doe again and insisted that the supervisor be told. Doe again expressed his fears about confidentiality, and pointed out that the nurse had counseled him that he was not required to reveal this information to his supervisor.

But the manager would not take no for an answer, telephoned the supervisor and asked her to come to his office. When she arrived, the manager told her that the information she was getting was confidential and not to be shared with anyone, and the supervisor said that she understood. Then the manager told her, in Doe’s presence, that Doe had HIV. Subsequently, the supervisor told Doe she would maintain a file with his medical excuses in her desk, and Doe complied with her request to give her the excuses, even though the nurse had told him this was not required. At a later point, the supervisor was informed she was not supposed to maintain such files in her desk, and she returned the file to Doe.

The supervisor lived up to Doe’s fears, telling two other employees about Doe’s medical condition, and one of them spread the information further. According to Judge Trauger’s opinion, "Mr. Doe suffered shame, embarrassment, and depression as a result of this disclosure" as word got around. "He took a leave of absence shortly after finding out about it, during which he sought medical treatment. When he returned form the leave of absence, the defendant laid him off, but he was subsequently rehired." Doe complained to the human resources department about the unauthorized disclosure of his medical information. They initially refused to take action against the supervisor, but after Doe protested, a new investigation determined that she had violated company policy and she was fired.

Doe filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which decided the case had merit and filed the lawsuit on Doe’s behalf. Doe then intervened as an individual plaintiff in the EEOC’s lawsuit, in order to add state law claims and seek damages. The state law claims were dismissed by agreement of the parties and Ford moved for summary judgment on the ADA claim, which Judge Trauger denied.

The main point of contention in the case was whether the fact that Doe was HIV-positive was the kind of medical information protected under the ADA confidentiality provisions. The ADA allows employers to require medical examinations and inquiries of employees that are job-related, and requires that the information obtained as a result be kept in medical files and treated as confidential. The statute does authorize disclosures to managers or supervisors as necessary to deal with work restrictions and accommodations for an employee’s medical condition.

Ford argued that the information in question was not obtained as a result of a medical examination or inquiry by the employer, but rather was offered voluntarily by Doe in order to get a scheduling accommodation. Trauger rejected this argument, finding that Doe was entitled to medical leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act, and that by insisting that he reveal the nature of his medical condition, the manager was conditioning his right to the leave on disclosure, making this into an inquiry by the employer. Trauger also pointed out that under Ford’s policy for medical leaves, Doe was required to disclose the nature of his medical condition to his supervisor in order to qualify for leave. Consequently, Ford could not credibly argue that this was a totally voluntary disclosure.

Ford also tried to make the rather nonsensical argument that the manager’s inquiry to Doe about his medical condition was not "job-related," since it did not relate to the ability of Doe to perform his job functions, and therefore was not covered by the ADA. "It is quite clear that the plaintiff-intervenor’s request for a schedule accommodation was related to his job," wrote Trauger, who asserted that because the manager "conditioned that leave on Mr. Doe’s response to his inquiry, that inquiry was also job-related." Trauger also noted that were the inquiry not job-related, it would have violated the ADA, which prohibited non-job-related inquiries about an employee’s medical condition.

Ford also argued that Doe could not maintain his ADA suit because he suffered no tangible injury, but Trauger found that Doe’s allegations sufficed to meet that requirement, stating that the "shame, embarrassment, and depression" he claimed to suffer "are tangible injuries." "Neither the defendant nor the court has identified any case in which the ‘tangible injury’ rule was applied to bar emotional or non-economic damages for claims arising from violations" of the confidentiality requirements of the ADA, she continued, noting that the 6^th Circuit Court of Appeals, which would hear any appeal in this case, had "upheld compensatory damages for emotional harm under different subsections of the ADA." Since Ford was not denying that Doe had suffered shame, embarrassment and depression as a result of the unauthorized disclosures, and that he had to take a medical leave of absence to deal with these problems, Trauger found that Does allegation "more than satisfies the plaintiff’s burden on summary judgment to demonstrate a tangible injury."

Trauger’s refusal to grant summary judgment to Ford will probably lead to a settlement of the case, since it is unlikely Ford will want a jury to decide how much Doe should get for Ford’s failure to preserve the confidentiality of his medical information.