{"id":66,"date":"2017-07-14T15:33:16","date_gmt":"2017-07-14T15:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sherin.com\/employment-blog\/?p=66"},"modified":"2021-06-10T19:46:40","modified_gmt":"2021-06-10T19:46:40","slug":"disability-discrimination-good-faith-is-not-enough-case-note-gannon-v-city-of-boston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sherin.com\/employment-blog\/2017\/07\/14\/disability-discrimination-good-faith-is-not-enough-case-note-gannon-v-city-of-boston\/","title":{"rendered":"Disability Discrimination, Good Faith is Not Enough: Case Note: Gannon v. City of Boston"},"content":{"rendered":"

On April 18, 2017, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court issued its decision in Gannon v. City of Boston<\/em>, a case involving the application of Massachusetts discrimination law to a disabled police officer, Sean Gannon.\u00a0 Officer Gannon was restricted to desk duty because the City of Boston determined that he could no longer safely patrol the City\u2019s streets.\u00a0 A lower court had entered summary judgment for the City — ruling that the City acted upon its good faith belief <\/strong>about Officer Gannon\u2019s condition — deciding against him before his case got to trial.\u00a0 The Supreme Judicial Court reversed and remanded the case for trial.<\/p>\n

The Court drew a distinction between two types of disability discrimination cases. First are those in which the employer\u2019s defense is that factors unrelated to disability motivated its actions \u2013 factors such as insubordination, poor job performance, or reduction in force.\u00a0 Second are those in which the employer agrees that its actions were motivated by the employee\u2019s disability.<\/p>\n

In the second type of case, the employer\u2019s defense is that the employee was not a \u201cqualified handicapped person\u201d entitled to the protections of the anti-discrimination law. Under Massachusetts law, to be \u201cqualified\u201d and entitled to the law\u2019s protections, the disabled employee must be capable of performing \u201cthe essential functions of the job\u201d with or without \u201creasonable accommodation.\u201d The Court ruled that an employer\u2019s good faith belief <\/strong>about an employee\u2019s medical limitations is no defense. Regardless of how well intentioned the employer is, if a reasonable jury could find that the employee was \u201cqualified\u201d to do the job, the case must be put to a jury.<\/p>\n

Where safety is an issue, a Massachusetts employer should make \u201can individualized factual inquiry based on substantial information regarding the employee\u2019s individual work and medical history\u201d and<\/u> be able to produce \u201cspecific evidence that employee would pose an unacceptably significant risk of serious injury to the employee or others.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Again, the employer\u2019s mere good faith belief<\/strong> is not enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On April 18, 2017, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court issued its decision in Gannon v. City of Boston, a case involving the application of Massachusetts discrimination law to a disabled police officer, Sean Gannon.\u00a0 Officer Gannon was restricted to desk duty because the City of Boston determined that he could no longer safely patrol the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":67,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[82,85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cases-to-note","category-discrimination"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDisability Discrimination, Good Faith is Not Enough: Case Note: Gannon v. 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