Pennsylvania Appeals Court Affirms HIV Discrimination Ruling Against Personal Care Home

A three-judge panel of the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania has affirmed a ruling by the state’s Human Relations Commission that a personal care residential facility violated the state’s ban on housing discrimination by expelling a recently admitted patient as soon as her HIV+ status became known to the proprietor of the home.  Canal Side Care Manor v. Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, 2011 WL 4986670 (Oct. 20, 2011).  Indeed, the court found the appeal so lacking in merit that it assessed attorney fees and costs against the Canal Side Care Manor, in addition to affirming the Commission’s award of $50,000 in compensatory damages and a $5,000 civil penalty.

According to the opinion by Judge McCullough, Canal Side, a 62-bed facility for men and women, specializes in residential care for low income individuals suffering from mental illness.  The complaining party in this case, G.D., is 36, bi-polar and schizophrenic, was diagnosed as HIV+ in 1998, and also suffers from shingles and incontinence.  In 2007, she was living in a group home run by a social services agency, but her physical and medical problems, especially her incontinence, dictated a higher level of care, so the staff there contacted Canal Side to arrange for G.D.’s admission.  They did not disclose that G.D. was HIV+ because their policy prohibited revealing the HIV status of their clients, and they didn’t mention her incontinence, either. 

After G.D. was admitted to Canal Side, the medication clerk there was checking G.D.’s medications and noted a medication that is distinctively used for shingles.  She questioned G.D., who said she took that medication because she had shingles and that she had shingles because she had HIV.  The clerk communicated the information up the chain of command to the proprietor, who personally told G.D. that she had 24 hours to leave the facility.  By then, the fact of G.D.’s incontinence had also come to light.  Although Canal Side’s medical consultant assured the proprietor that so long as they followed the universal body fluid precautions that they routinely used with all patients, there was no risk of HIV transmission to the staff or other patients, and that urine-soaked sheets were not a vector for HIV transmission, nonetheless members of the staff had articulated their fears and the proprietor determined that G.D. could not stay there.  G.D.’s former facility was contacted and a member of her family took her home the next day, and then filed the discrimination charge with the Commission.

The Commission found direct evidence of discriminatory intent, heard testimony about the psychological impact this incident had on G.D., and assessed damages as described above.  On appeal, Canal Side argued that the Commission erred by failing to credit the “non-discriminatory reason” it had advanced for expelling G.D., namely, fear of contagion.  Rejecting this argument, the court found that G.D. presented direct evidence of discriminatory intent, and that the record did not support a finding that Canal Side could not safely provide care for G.D.  The court refused to second-guess the Commission’s damage award, pointing out that Canal Side’s arguments “ignore the Commission’s findings and the factors the Commission considered in concluding that $50,000 is ‘appropriate to compensate G.D. for the humiliation and embarrassment she suffered which was neither transient nor trivial.”   Indeed, Canal Side’s failure on appeal to address the details of the Commission finding and to attempt, in effect, to relitigate the case de novo before the appeals court, led to the decision to assess fees and costs against the appellant.  A.S.L.