Raytheon Co. v. Hernandez

Background

Joel Hernandez was a longtime employee who tested positive for cocaine, admitted using drugs, and was forced to resign for violating workplace conduct rules. More than two years later he applied for rehire, attached letters saying he was in recovery, and was rejected after a company reviewer looked at his personnel file and cited a no-rehire-for-misconduct policy. The EEOC found reasonable cause to believe the company denied hire because of his record of past drug use, and Hernandez sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act alleging discrimination based on a record of, or being regarded as, disabled.

Reasoning

The Supreme Court considered whether the Ninth Circuit correctly treated the company’s neutral no-rehire rule. The Court explained the difference between two legal approaches: disparate treatment (treating someone worse because of a protected trait) and disparate impact (a neutral rule that disproportionately hurts a protected group). The Ninth Circuit had treated the employer’s neutral no-rehire policy as unlawful by using a disparate-impact approach. The Supreme Court said that was the wrong analysis for a disparate-treatment claim. It held that a neutral, generally applicable no-rehire policy is a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason under the usual burden-shifting framework and therefore vacated the Ninth Circuit’s judgment and remanded for further proceedings.

Real world impact

The Court did not decide the bigger question it had asked about whether the ADA requires preferential rehire rights for rehabilitated employees. Instead it sent the case back so lower courts can apply the correct legal test and determine whether the employer’s stated reason was a cover-up for discrimination. This means the legal fight over rehire rights and ADA protection for former drug users remains unresolved at the national level.