determining that the comment “people with Parkinson’s don’t get better” did not constitute direct evidence of disability discrimination because it “could simply be an observation about the disorder” and, in order “[t]o be evidence of animus, the comment requires an inference that the irreversible nature of Parkinson’s disease was the reason why [the plaintiff] would not be returning to work”
How later courts described this case
- determining that the comment “people with Parkinson’s don’t get better” did not constitute direct evidence of disability discrimination because it “could simply be an observation about the disorder” and, in order “[t]o be evidence of animus, the comment requires an inference that the irreversible nature of Parkinson’s disease was the reason why [the plaintiff] would not be returning to work”
- stating that comments by managers regarding an employee who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease that he “was never coming back to work” and “people with Parkinson’s don’t get better” were not sufficient to show direct discrimination because the inference had to be drawn that Plaintiff was not coming back to work due to the irreversible nature of his disability
- stating that employer’s direct threat conclusion must not result from “a categorical conclusion that an employee with a particular disability cannot safely perform a job”
- assuming that an employer met its obligation at step two of the McDonnell-Douglas summary judgment framework for discrimination cases because the plaintiff prevailed on the third-stage question of ultimate causation
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
JAMES C. HO, Circuit Judge, dissenting:
I applaud the panel majority for withdrawing its earlier opinion in this matter ( 912 F.3d 263 ), for the reasons stated in footnote 6 of its revised opinion. Although I would still affirm the district court for the case-specific evidentiary reasons specified in my original dissent (but which are not independently worthy of en banc review) ( see id . at 279-83), the panel majority has now wisely obviated the need for en banc rehearing in this case, by removing the process-based theory of liability that animated its earlier opinion. There is no basis for such a legal theory under the ADA, for reasons that need not be repeated here-but are well articulated in the petition for en banc rehearing and the persuasive amicus briefs filed by the Association of American Railroads, the Center for Workplace Compliance, and the National Federation of Independent Business ( see also id . at 283-84).