Charbonneau v. Gorczyk

• Citation: 838 A.2d 117
• Decision Date: 07 November 2003
• Docket Number: No. 01-312.,01-312.
• Parties: John CHARBONNEAU v. John GORCZYK.
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court

838 A.2d 117

John CHARBONNEAU v. John GORCZYK.

No. 01-312.

Supreme Court of Vermont.

November 7, 2003.

Matthew Valerio, Defender General, Seth Lipschutz, Prisoners' Rights Office, and Michal Mokryn, Legal Intern, Montpelier, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

William H. Sorrell, Attorney General, Montpelier, and Nicole Andreson, Assistant Attorney General, Waterbury, for Defendant-Appellee.

Present: AMESTOY, C.J., DOOLEY, JOHNSON and SKOGLUND, JJ., and ALLEN, C.J. (Ret.), Specially Assigned¹.

AMESTOY, C.J.

¶ 1. Plaintiff John Charbonneau appeals a decision by the Orleans County Superior Court dismissing his claim against John Gorczyk, Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Corrections (DOC) for discrimination under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Following a bench trial, the trial court concluded that (1) plaintiff is not "disabled" under the ADA, and (2) if plaintiff is disabled, his requested modifications to accommodate the disability are unreasonable. We affirm the court's decision that plaintiff is not disabled within the meaning of the ADA, and therefore we find it unnecessary to determine the reasonableness of plaintiff's requested accommodations.

¶ 2. The facts presented at trial were essentially undisputed. At issue here is whether the facts support the trial court's legal conclusions. Our standard of review on questions of law is de novo. State v. Pollander, 167 Vt. 301, 304, 706 A.2d 1359, 1360 (1997). We now turn to the facts as found by the trial court.

¶ 3. Plaintiff is a prisoner at the Northern State Correctional Facility (NSCF). He suffers from Prinz-Metil angina, a heart condition that causes intermittent, involuntary spasms of the coronary artery, restricting blood flow to the heart. The spasms are unpredictable and are not necessarily caused by stress or overexertion. People with this condition can suffer spasms even at rest. When these spasms occur, plaintiff experiences acute pain, and he must take three nitroglycerin tablets over a fifteen minute period. If the pain persists despite the medication, more intensive medical intervention is necessary to diagnose the potential for a heart attack. Timely medical care following a spasm is essential to successfully monitor and manage plaintiff's condition.

¶ 4. While incarcerated, plaintiff has experienced sixteen of these episodes. One of those sixteen episodes required a hospital visit. At the time of trial, plaintiff was housed at NSCF, a facility with a nurse on duty twenty-four hours per day.

¶ 5. Although most individuals who suffer from Prinz-Metil angina must live in an area where they have access to medical care, many can live and work in the community with few, if any, residence, travel, or work restrictions. Thus, plaintiff has been able to work while in prison, performing janitorial and laundry services. For his work, plaintiff has received earned reductions in his term (ERT).

¶ 6. Seeking additional ERT, plaintiff asked for a transfer to a prison work camp in St. Johnsbury. The work camp is a special prison facility that houses a small number of inmates. It provides a program whose mission is rehabilitation through community service. Inmates at the camp receive additional ERT, reducing their sentences at a faster rate than inmates at other facilities, like NSCF. DOC officials denied plaintiff's transfer request because he was not medically qualified for the program due to the lack of full-time medical coverage necessary to monitor and mange his Prinz-Metil angina. Plaintiff grieved the denial to the DOC. He requested to attend the work camp or, in the alternative, to receive the additional ERT he would receive at the work camp while remaining at NSCF. Prison officials denied his grievance.

¶ 7. Following the prison's denial of his grievance, plaintiff filed suit in Orleans Superior Court on November 7, 2000. At trial, he argued that under the ADA he should either be given access to the work camp or receive the additional ERT he would have earned at the camp. Following a bench trial, the Orleans Superior Court dismissed plaintiff's claims, finding that he is not disabled under the ADA because his impairment does not substantially affect his ability to work in a broad range of jobs. The court also found that even if plaintiff were disabled within the meaning of the ADA, his request to attend the work camp could not be made without undue hardship to the DOC. This appeal followed.

¶ 8. This case is governed by Title II of the ADA, which prohibits state agencies like the DOC from excluding an individual from a DOC program because of the individual's disability. See 42 U.S.C. § 12132 (1995) (forbidding disability discrimination by states). A person is disabled if the person (1) has a "physical or mental impairment," (2) "that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities." 42 U.S.C. § 12102(2)(A) (1995). Under the regulations implementing Title II of the ADA, to which we must accord great deference, Bartlett v. N.Y. State Bd. of Law Examiners, 226 F.3d 69, 79, 82 (2d Cir.2000), a substantial limitation is established "when the individual's important life activities are restricted as to the conditions, manner, or duration under which they can be performed in comparison to most people." 28 C.F.R. Pt. 35, App. A § 35.104 (2003); see also Gonzales v. Nat'l Bd. of Medical Examiners, 225 F.3d 620, 626-27 (6th Cir.2000) (DOJ regulations require comparison of plaintiff's limits to those of general population). To be "disabled," a causal nexus must exist between the impairment and the substantial limitation of the major life activity at issue. Bartlett, 226 F.3d at 84-85. "In other words, the definition of `disability' ... encompasses the requirement that it be the impairment, and not some other factor or factors, that causes the substantial limitation." Id.

¶ 9. In this case, there is no dispute that Prinz-Metil angina is a physical impairment. At issue is whether plaintiff's impairment substantially limits a major life activity. The major life activity the parties contest is plaintiff's ability to work. Thus, a determination of whether plaintiff is disabled within the meaning of the ADA turns on whether his working ability is substantially limited by his Prinz-Metil angina rather than some other factor. The trial court found that plaintiff's heart condition is not one which normally limits, in a meaningful way, a person's capacity to work. Many persons with Prinz-Metil angina live and work with few, if any, restrictions. Plaintiff's condition has not affected any of his day-to-day activities, nor interfered with his ability to perform laundry and janitorial jobs at the prison. In fact, plaintiff held a position in the prison laundry at the time he testified in this case. The fact that plaintiff could perform work while incarcerated demonstrates that his medical condition does not substantially limit his ability to work. Cf. Gelabert-Ladenheim v. American Airlines, Inc., 252 F.3d 54, 59-63 (1st Cir.2001) (relying in part on plaintiff's pre- and post-impairment work history, court concludes that plaintiff was not "substantially limited" in her ability to work); Dutcher v. Ingalls Shipbuilding, 53 F.3d 723, 727 (5th Cir. 1995) (welder was not substantially limited in her ability to work where she could work as welder in fab shop); Heilweil v. Mount Sinai Hosp., 32 F.3d 718, 722-24 (2d Cir.1994) (construing Rehabilitation Act's similar definition of disability and concluding that asthmatic was not substantially limited in working because she could work in other areas of hospital without aggravating her asthma); Smaw v. Va. Dep't of State Police, 862 F.Supp. 1469, 1475 (E.D.Va.1994) (plaintiff's "present position as a dispatcher would seem to negate any argument that she is disqualified from her profession by her weight"). Significantly, plaintiff himself describes his condition as an inconvenience.

¶ 10. Plaintiff argues that notwithstanding his ability to work at a number of jobs at the prison, his need to be in reasonable proximity of medical care presents a geographical and temporal limitation on his ability to work. He points out that regulations issued under Title I of the ADA direct courts to consider the jobs available and foreclosed to the individual in the geographical area to which the individual has access. See 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(j)(3)(ii)(A) (2003). Plaintiff analogizes his situation to one described in guidelines interpreting those regulations:

[S]uppose an individual has an allergy to a substance found in most high rise office buildings ... [making] breathing extremely difficult. Since this individual would be substantially limited in the ability to perform the broad range of jobs in various classes that are conducted in high rise office buildings within the geographical area to which he or she has reasonable access, he or she would be substantially limited in working.

29 C.F.R. Pt. 1630.2(j), App. (2003). Plaintiff claims that because his condition precludes him from working any job at the work camp, his impairment is substantially limiting.

¶ 11. Plaintiff's analogy is inapposite. It is not, in the instant case, a matter of an individual being precluded from a wide variety of jobs because the medical condition is aggravated by a factor common to the workplaces where the jobs are (i.e., an allergy aggravated by substances in high-rise office buildings). Rather, the individual is precluded from a wide variety of jobs because he is in prison having been convicted of a crime. Thus, plaintiff's situation is more analogous to a worker whose allergies preclude her from doing office work in a particular office building (the work camp) but can perform similar work in other buildings without problems (NSCF). See Heilweil, 32 F.3d at 723-24. As such, plaintiff's choice of work sites may be limited, but the limitation is not a factor of his medical condition, it is a factor of his...