Diffey v. Riverside County Sheriff's Department (November 14, 2000)
* court: California Appellate
* public agency: County of Riverside
* plaintiff: applicant for employment as deputy sheriff
* defendant: County of Riverside
* trial court's decision: jury verdict of $300,000 in favor of
plaintiff
* Appellate Court: overturns jury verdict
* issue area: color blindness, Americans with disabilities Act,
definition of disability
Diffey Facts
*
Diffey is severely color blind. He
cannot see red. His
condition is correctable with a special corrective lens.
* POST guidelines require an applicant not be color
blind. POST guidelines
further disallow the use of a special corrective lens to pass the
color test.
* Diffey applied with the Riverside Sheriff's
Department for the position of deputy sheriff.
The department did not hire Diffey because Diffey did not pass
the color test and did not meet POST color-vision standards.
* At trial the jury in a special verdict found that
Diffey could perform the job of deputy sheriff with or without
reasonable accommodation.
* The jury also found that, although Diffey was not in
fact disabled, the County regarded him as disabled.
* The County put on evidence at trial that, although
Diffey could not perform the essential functions of the job of deputy
sheriff, Diffey was not disabled and was qualified to perform
sixty-three other jobs with the sheriff's department.
Diffey
Analysis
* The first issue in a disability discrimination case
is to determine if a plaintiff has a disability. Under both the federal Americans with Disabilities Act or the
state Fair Employment and Housing Act, you do not need to really be
disabled; it is enough if others regard you as disabled.
* In this case the issue is whether the County
regarded Diffey as disabled.
* In the 1999 Sutton case, the U.S.
Supreme Court held that severely nearsighted plaintiffs who want to be
airline pilots were not disabled because their vision was correctable.
The Sutton court also upheld an employer's right
to establish reasonable physical job requirements.
* In the present case, the evidence showed that County
personnel did not view Diffey as disabled. The County just concluded that he could not pass POST's
color-vision tests.
* In fact, Diffey's color blindness did not cause his
major life activity of seeing to be substantially limited.
* Moreover, the POST color-vision guidelines are a valid job requirement
for a deputy sheriff.
* The court also rejected the statement made in
the 1999 Real v. City of Compton case (previously
reported by this office to the trustees) that, if an individual is
shut out of a broad class of jobs (such as law enforcement in
general), then the individual is disabled.
On the contrary, the Diffey court, following Sutton,
concluded that, even if this is the case, it would not necessarily
mean that the individual was disabled.
