Obesity, disabled rights and the EEOC

In case you imagined that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission these days was all sweetness and reason with employers in enforcing anti-discrimination law, check out Baseball Crank’s analysis (Sept. 12) of a new Sixth Circuit case, EEOC v. Watkins Motor Lines (PDF). Watkins Motor Lines hired Stephen Grindle, who then weighed 340 pounds, as a […]

In case you imagined that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission these days was all sweetness and reason with employers in enforcing anti-discrimination law, check out Baseball Crank’s analysis (Sept. 12) of a new Sixth Circuit case, EEOC v. Watkins Motor Lines (PDF). Watkins Motor Lines hired Stephen Grindle, who then weighed 340 pounds, as a driver/dock worker:

Approximately 65% of his time was spent performing dock work including loading, unloading, and arranging freight. The job description for this position notes that the job involves climbing, kneeling, bending, stooping, balancing, reaching, and repeated heavy lifting.

Grindle continued to gain weight, hitting a high of 450 pounds.

In November 1995, Grindle sustained an on-the-job injury. He was climbing a ladder at the loading dock and a rung broke. He started to fall and caught himself but, in doing so, he injured his knee. …

[In 1996 an industrial clinic doctor, Dr. Walter Lawrence,] found that Grindle had a limited range of motion and that he could duck and squat but he was short of breath after a few steps. Dr. Lawrence also noted that “[o]n physical examination, the most notable item is that the patient weighs 405 lbs.” Dr. Lawrence concluded that, even though Grindle met Department of Transportation standards for truck drivers, he could not safely perform the requirements of his job.

So the company let him go, he sued, and the Sixth Circuit has now upheld the dismissal of his suit on summary judgment, not on the grounds you might think (that the grounds for his dismissal were obviously rational) but rather on the grounds that morbid obesity, when not caused by a physiological disorder at least, is not an “impairment” under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Michael Fox at Jottings of an Employer’s Lawyer also comments (Sept. 12) as does lawprof Sam Bagenstos (Sept. 12).

4 Comments

  • They hired him at 340 pounds, he worked without incident for five years, during which time his weight ranged up to 450 pounds, and when he becomes injured he’s suddenly unfit for the job. What a joy that company must be to work for.

  • Tom: If his injury prevents him from working, he has a case for workman’s compensation – which is a mandatory insurance program – but not to keep the job he cannot do, and not for an ADA suit. It sounds like it was obesity and lack of exercise, not the knee injury, that was disabling him. And whose fault was *that*?

  • Tom, you don’t see the difference between 340 and 450 pounds? You don’t think it even remotely possible that some margin was passed in the range between those weights, which is approximately the weight of an entire fit female person? You are not impressed by the fact that his weight increased by a third — you call those changes “suddenly”?

  • I’m just reading the facts of the case: He apparently did the job fine at 450 (he was 405 when fired), he worked 50-60 hours per week in the month after the accident, and his injury was not cited as an impairment to his ability to the same job at the same weight as he was before. The facts don’t appear to me to support the doctor’s ruling, which suggests to me that the company made the decision to get rid of him and then looked for a fig leaf for it.

    Look, I think the court decision was correct; there’s no ADA claim here, and he’s an employee at will, so they can fire him whenever they choose. I just think the company acted unpleasantly.