W. EUGENE DAVIS, Circuit Judge:
Plaintiffs-Appellants are police officers employed by the City of Shreveport (the "City"). The City's police department (the "Department") recently adopted a new sick leave policy entitled "SPD 301.06." Plaintiffs challenge SPD 301.06 on numerous statutory and constitutional grounds. They seek declaratory and injunctive relief, damages, fees, and costs.
The district court dismissed Plaintiffs' suit in its entirety pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). We affirm in part, vacate in part, and remand for further proceedings.
"We review de novo the district court's decision to dismiss a complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), accepting as true the well-pleaded factual allegations in the complaint."
Defendants have attached copies of SPD 301.06 and its associated forms to their motion to dismiss. We may consider these documents when reviewing the district court's order.
We begin with Plaintiffs' facial challenges to SPD 301.06 under federal law.
Plaintiffs first challenge SPD 301.06's home confinement provisions. The policy provides that an officer on sick leave must generally remain at his or her residence for the entire sick leave period. However, the officer may leave his or her home to
Plaintiffs assert that the home confinement provisions violate their rights to travel and associate with others under the Substantive Due Process clause of the United States Constitution.
A "police department, as a paramilitary organization, must be given considerably more latitude in its decisions regarding discipline and personnel management than the ordinary government employer."
SPD 301.06's home confinement provisions rationally serve the Department's legitimate interests in safety and morale "by expediting the recovery of sick officers, minimizing the burden on officers who may have to work longer hours while other officers are out sick, and assuring that officers on sick leave are not malingering and that the sick leave policy is not abused."
Plaintiffs also argue that the home restriction provisions are unconstitutional because they give government officials too much discretion to decide whether and when an ill or injured officer may leave his or her house.
Thus, we reject Plaintiffs' constitutional challenges to SPD 301.06's home confinement provisions.
SPD 301.06 also provides: "When a member is using sick leave, their supervisor or the Human Resources Officer may visit or contact the member to ascertain if the department can do anything to assist the member and verify information" regarding the officer's health status. According to Plaintiffs, this provision constitutes "home invasion" and an "unreasonable search and seizure" in violation of the Fourth Amendment. This claim is meritless, so the district court correctly dismissed it.
Plaintiffs also claim that SPD 301.06 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution because the City's police officers are subject to greater sick leave restrictions than the City's firefighters. This challenge is meritless. The City has a rational basis for treating police officers differently than firefighters.
Plaintiffs also challenge the provisions of SPD 301.06 that authorize the Department to obtain medical information from ill or injured officers. According to Plaintiffs, requesting and obtaining this information constitutes an unlawful inquiry into the nature and severity of an officer's disability.
Section 12112(d)(4)(A) of the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA") provides:
Thus, a prohibited medical examination or inquiry may constitute a form of employment discrimination under the ADA.
Importantly, § 12112(d)(4)(A) is codified in Title I of the ADA. Plaintiffs cannot bring a cause of action directly under Title I because Plaintiffs have not satisfied that Title's exhaustion requirements. In an attempt to get around the exhaustion bar, Plaintiffs argue that they are actually pursuing medical inquiry claims under Title II of the ADA,
The district court correctly dismissed Plaintiffs' Title II claims. Unlike Title I of the ADA, Title II does not create a cause of action for employment discrimination.
Plaintiffs' Rehabilitation Act claims fare slightly better. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act provides:
Unlike Title II of the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act incorporates many of Title I's prohibitions on employment discrimination by reference,
Defendants first argue that Plaintiffs lack the qualifications necessary to bring a claim under the Rehabilitation Act. For the following reasons, we disagree.
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act only applies to (1) federal agencies and (2) entities receiving federal financial assistance.
Defendants argue that the Plaintiffs failed to allege in their complaint that the "specific program or activity" with which they are involved — namely, the police department — "receives or directly benefits from federal financial assistance." We disagree. The complaint alleges that "the City receives federal funds for the police department." The Department is a specific "program or activity" within the meaning of the Rehabilitation Act.
Defendants also argue that the Rehabilitation Act requires Plaintiffs to exhaust
Defendants also argue that, because Plaintiffs have not alleged that they are "disabled" as the ADA defines that term, they have no standing to pursue a medical inquiry claim under the Rehabilitation Act. We have previously declined to decide whether a plaintiff must be disabled to invoke the protections of § 12112(d)(4)(A).
We therefore proceed to the merits of Plaintiffs' medical inquiry claims under the Rehabilitation Act. SPD 301.06 contains two provisions that require an officer on sick leave to divulge medical information to the Department: the "general diagnosis" provision, and the "SPD-3 Form" provision. Plaintiffs challenge both.
SPD 301.06 provides that "[f]or every event that a member uses sick leave [he or she] shall furnish or verify" to his or her supervisor the "[n]ature of illness or injury." Thus, an officer who takes sick leave must provide the Department with a general diagnosis to explain why he or she was absent from work. Plaintiffs assert that the Rehabilitation Act prohibits employers from asking an absent employee about the medical nature of his or her absence and the condition being treated.
Crucially, to prevail on a Rehabilitation Act claim, the plaintiff must ultimately prove that the defendant discriminated against him or her solely on the basis of disability.
Plaintiffs emphasize that several courts have struck down similar general diagnosis provisions in sick leave policies under Title I of the ADA. These courts hold that any request for medical information that may tend to reveal a disability, including a request for a general diagnosis, is sufficient to trigger Title I's protections.
Therefore, the district court properly dismissed Plaintiffs' challenge to the general diagnosis provision.
The SPD-3 Form requirement, which is the second medical inquiry provision at issue, is somewhat more intrusive. Although we uphold one aspect of the requirement, we reverse and remand to allow Plaintiffs to pursue their challenge to other aspects of the SPD-3 Form provision.
First, "[f]or every undocumented sick leave event," the officer must complete the "Employee" section of an "SPD-3 Form." This requires the officer to certify:
Plaintiffs argue that this provision permits the Department to obtain any medical information that it desires, even if the information is not directly related to the officer's absence. We do not interpret the
However, the SPD-3 Form also provides that, if the officer uses three or more days of undocumented sick leave in a single year, or if the officer uses documented sick leave, then the officer's healthcare provider must also furnish certain medical information about the officer on either the "Healthcare Provider" section of the SPD-3 Form or the healthcare provider's official letterhead. The provider must, among other things, "[s]tate if the [officer's] condition is chronic and whether intermittent absences related to the condition may be possible." This "chronic condition" provision is more troubling, as it may enable the Department to determine whether the officer has "a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities."
We must therefore reverse the district court's order to the extent it dismissed this claim. On remand, the City will have the burden to show that this aspect of the SPD-3 Form requirement is "job-related and consistent with business necessity."
However, Plaintiffs may not obtain compensatory damages if they ultimately prevail on their medical inquiry claim because none of the Plaintiffs allege that the SPD-3 Form requirement proximately caused them any tangible injury in fact.
The remainder of Plaintiffs' facial challenges under federal law are either inadequately briefed or so patently meritless as to merit no discussion, so we affirm the district court's order to the extent it dismissed those claims.
We turn now to Plaintiffs' as-applied challenges to SPD 301.06 under federal law.
Plaintiff-Appellant Jessica Walker ("Walker") alleges that Defendants unlawfully disclosed her medical information of the Rehabilitation Act.
Under 42 U.S.C. § 12112(d) of the ADA, if an employer performs a medical inquiry or examination, the employer must treat the medical information it obtains as a result of that inquiry as a "confidential medical record."
Walker does not allege that Defendants disclosed medical information that they first acquired pursuant to an employer-initiated medical inquiry or examination, rather than by some other means. She does not specify which medical conditions Defendants disclosed or how Defendants first found out about them. Although Walker does allege that Defendants required her to submit an SPD-3 Form, she does not describe the contents of that SPD-3 Form or specify whether Defendants first learned of the disclosed medical conditions as a result of that SPD-3 Form. Therefore, we affirm the district court's order dismissing Walker's medical disclosure claim pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6).
The remainder of Plaintiffs' as-applied claims under federal law are either inadequately
Plaintiffs have also sued several of their supervisors in their individual and official capacities. Essentially, Plaintiffs argue that SPD 301.06 violates their constitutional and statutory rights, so the individual Defendants must be held liable for drafting, adopting, implementing, and enforcing SPD 301.06.
The individual Defendants have asserted the defense of qualified immunity. They are entitled to it. To avoid dismissal on qualified immunity grounds, a plaintiff must show that (1) the defendant violated a federal statutory or constitutional right; and (2) the right in question was "clearly established" at the time of the violation.
Plaintiffs also raise miscellaneous state law claims against Defendants. Because the district court dismissed all of Plaintiffs' federal claims, it declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Plaintiffs' state law claims, and accordingly dismissed those claims without prejudice.
We VACATE the district court's order to the extent that it dismissed Plaintiffs' Rehabilitation Act challenge to the portion of the SPD-3 Form that requests information regarding whether the officer has a "chronic condition." We REMAND to the district court to allow Plaintiffs to pursue, at most, injunctive and declaratory relief on that claim.
On remand, the district court may also reconsider the portion of its order dismissing Plaintiffs' state law claims.
We AFFIRM the district court's order in all other respects.
AFFIRMED in part, VACATED in part, and REMANDED.
Like every Circuit that has recently considered the question, we reject the Eleventh Circuit's contrary conclusion in Bledsoe v. Palm Beach Cnty. Soil & Water Conservation Dist., 133 F.3d 816, 818, 820-25 (11th Cir.1998).
We do not now decide whether a plaintiff may pursue an employment discrimination suit under Title II against an employer that is not covered by Title I, such as a public entity with fewer than fifteen employees. See Mary Jo C., 707 F.3d at 171 n. 12.
There are exceptions to that general rule, but none are relevant here. See 42 U.S.C. § 12112(d)(3)(B)(i)-(iii).
The ADA also provides that the employer must also keep medical information obtained pursuant to a voluntary medical examination conducted as part of an employee health program confidential, but nothing in the complaint indicates that this case implicates that provision of the ADA. See, e.g., Fisher v. Harvey, No. 1:05-CV-102, 2006 WL 2370207, at *4 (E.D.Tenn. Aug. 14, 2006).
On remand, the district court need not grant Walker a chance to amend her complaint to add the missing allegations. The district court has already afforded Plaintiffs multiple opportunities to cure the numerous defects in their pleadings. Of course, the district court may exercise its discretion to permit further amendment if it so desires.
