Estate Of Mauro v. Borgess Medical Center

137 F.3d 398 (1998)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

D from May 1990, employed P as an operating room technician. In June 1992, an undisclosed source informed D that P had “full-blown” AIDS. As D suspected that P might expose a patient to HIV, D’s staff members created a full-time position of case cart/instrument coordinator to eliminate all risks of the transmission of HIV. A month later, the position was offered to P but he refused. After P’s refusal D created a task force to determine that whether an HIV-positive employee could safely perform the job responsibilities of a surgical technician. The task force determined that a job, which requires an HIV-infected worker to place his or her hand into a patient’s body cavity in the presence of sharp instrumentation, represented a direct threat to the patient’s care and safety. An essential function of P’s job was to enter a patient’s wound during surgery, the task force determined that P could not serve as a surgical technician. P was given two choices which were to take an alternative position or be laid off. P did not respond and D laid him off effective August 24, 1992. P filed a suit alleging that his infection did not pose a direct threat to the patients. D moved for summary judgment arguing under Arline four-factor test (1) the nature of the risk from how the disease is transmitted, (2) the duration of the risk, (3) the severity of the risk and the potential harm to third parties, and (4) the probabilities the disease will be transmitted and will cause varying degrees of harm. The District Court concluded that P’s presence in the operating room as a surgical technician posed a direct and significant risk to the health and safety of others. It ruled that D had not violated any provisions of ADA and the Rehabilitation Act by removing P from his position. P appealed.