OCTOBER 2005

II. JUDICIAL UPDATE

Burdens of Proof in California Disability Discrimination Cases

In Green v. State of California, a California court of appeal has made it easier for employees to state a claim for disability discrimination cases filed pursuant to the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (“FEHA”). Dwight Green (the “Employee”) successfully sued the State of California (“the Employer”) for disability discrimination and failure to accommodate his disability. The Employee contracted Hepatitis C while working as an engineer at a correctional facility.

Federal court decisions (applying the Americans with Disabilities Act) and previous state court decisions have required an employee to establish that he or she: (1) suffers from a disability; (2) is qualified to perform the essential functions of the job with or without a reasonable accommodation; and (3) experienced an adverse employment action because of the disability. Under previous decisions, the burden of proof then shifts to the employer to demonstrate that it had a legitimate business reason for taking the adverse employment action. In order to prevail, an employee must then respond with proof that the employer’s stated reason was a mere pretext for taking the adverse employment action.

Green, however, shifts the burden of proof as to whether the employee is a qualified individual with a disability from the employee to the employer. Green requires that the employee now need only show that: (1) he or she had a disability; (2) he or she suffered an adverse employment decision; and (3) the employer made the adverse decision because of the disability. The employer then has the burden of proving that an employee could not perform the essential functions of the job with or without reasonable accommodation.

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