[nagdu] {Disarmed} Fear of dogs

[Jody Ianuzzi]

Cabbie Loses ADA Suit After Refusing Ride to Service Dog 
Jay Stapleton, The Connecticut Law Tribune 
February 20, 2015     
As a taxi driver recently learned, being afraid of dogs is not a legally valid excuse for refusing to pick up a disabled person with a service animal.
Mansoor Ahmad was fired from his job in 2011 for doing just that. In response, in a pair of lawsuits in both state and federal court, Ahmad claimed he was discriminated against because of his own disability: a fear of dogs.
On June 10, 2011, Ahmad was in his taxi waiting in line to pick up passengers at Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks. When it was his turn to pick up a fare, Ahmad pulled up to the curb and saw the passenger was a person with a service dog. As he had previously been bitten by a dog, he refused to allow the passenger into his cab.
An airport taxi dispatcher who worked for the Connecticut Department of Transportation called the police. Ahmad and his father, who was driving a separate taxi for the company and who had come to his son's defense, were both detained by police and subsequently fired.
In 2012, Ahmad filed separate lawsuits against the Yellow Cab Co. of New London Inc. and the Department of Transportation, which took Ahmad's taxi license. Judges who were called on to review those lawsuits­one in state and the other in federal court­came to the same conclusions and dismissed all claims.
On Feb. 6, Superior Court Judge Nina Elgo agreed that a fear of dogs is a recognized mental disability under the DSM-5 diagnostic manual of standards used by the courts. However, she stated, it does not protect someone who refuses services to­or who denies access to­another person with a disability. Under state and federal law, the judge wrote, Ahmad's employment prohibited him from refusing to provide taxi service to individuals with service dogs.
Ahmad's lawyer, John Williams of New Haven, said he was not surprised at the ruling. "I saw it coming," he said, referring to a series of court decisions that have found that workers cannot claim employment discrimination if their disability stops them from performing the "essential functions of the job."
In 2004, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Siederbaum v. New York, found that a man with bipolar disorder could not sue the city for discrimination after it rejected his application to be a transit bus driver. The panel concluded that "a lack of bipolar disorder was an essential part of the job."
In the Ahmad case, Elgo wrote, "under state and federal law, taxicab drivers are required to provide transportation to disabled individuals and their service animals, which constitutes an essential function of their job." The plaintiff, she said, provided no authority to support "his ultimate claim, that in order to accommodate his disability, the defendant should be forced to violate state and federal laws which prohibit discrimination of another individual based on disability."
Late last year, U.S. District Judge Alvin Thompson made a similar ruling in the federal lawsuit, which alleged Ahmad's rights were violated under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
While neither outcome was surprising, it did appear to be the first time that a fear of dogs came up in an employment discrimination lawsuit in Connecticut. Because of that novelty, Williams said he thinks the decision will be of interest to employers who hire employment lawyers to draft policies about adhering to ADA regulations.
Similar issues have arisen from time to time, he said. For instance, he handled a case matter many years ago where a man claimed he could not provide a urine sample for employment drug testing because he had "lazy bladder syndrome."
Daniel Schwartz, a Shipman & Goodwin employment law partner, has been following the case since 2012. He even wrote about the legal issues in his Connecticut Employment Law Blog. Of particular interest to Schwartz is the idea that a growing list of phobias that are recognized as disabilities could give rise to claims from workers seeking protection from discrimination.
The taxi driver, he noted, was successful in showing that fear of dogs was a disability. "Under the ADA, the definition of a disability is much broader than it was before," he said. For instance, he said, many anxiety disorders are now recognized disabilities. Schwartz said this is one of the first cases, if not the first case, in which a Connecticut court held that "a phobia is a mental disorder in Connecticut."
But, Schwartz said, in the taxi case, the public interest in making sure those with disabilities are treated fairly in the workplace ran up against the public interest in making sure people with disabilities who use service dogs have access to reliable transportation. The decision "came down to the fact that the government has a rule that cabbies need to pick up service animals," he said. "I think it's interesting from that perspective."



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JODY 🐺

"There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes."  DOCTOR WHO (Tom Baker)