Help

BI’s Article search uses Boolean search capabilities. If you are not familiar with these principles, here are some quick tips.

To search specifically for more than one word, put the search term in quotation marks. For example, “workers compensation”. This will limit your search to that combination of words.

To search for a combination of terms, use quotations and the & symbol. For example, “hurricane” & “loss”.

Login Register Subscribe

Fired cop's award overturned because ADHD not severe, says court

Reprints
Fired cop's award overturned because ADHD not severe, says court

A terminated police officer who was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder was not sufficiently impaired to be protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act, said an appeals court, in overturning a lower court's $777,700 court award.

Matthew Weaving, who was hired by the Hillsboro, Oregon police department in 2006, had been diagnosed with ADHD as a six-year old, but believed he had outgrown it, according to Friday's ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Matthew Weaving v. City of Hillsboro. He was promoted to sergeant in 2007.

Mr. Weaving began to have interpersonal difficulties with others in the department, and referred to some officers in a derogatory fashion, according to the ruling.

In March 2009, Mr. Weaving issued a several-page disciplinary letter to a subordinate who had driven a marked police vehicle through a surveillance area. The officer believed the letter was a disproportionate response to what he had done and filed a grievance against Mr. Weaving with the city's human resources department. In April 2009, the city placed Mr. Weaving on administrative leave pending investigation of the grievance.

A psychologist he went to concluded Mr. Weaving suffered from adult ADHA and reported this to the police chief, but based on a lieutenant's recommendations, Mr. Weaving was terminated in December 2009.

Mr. Weaving filed suit against the city, charging it had fired him because he had an impairment that limited his ability to work and interact with others, and because it regarded him as disabled.

A jury in U.S. District Court in Portland, Oregon, concluded Mr. Weaving was disabled under the ADA and that the city had terminated him because of his disability. It awarded him $75,000 in damages. The district court also awarded him $232,143 in back pay, $330,807 in front pay and $139,712 in attorney fees.

An appellate panel reversed the district court's judgment in a 2-1 ruling. “The 2008 amendments to the ADA relaxed the standard for determining whether a plaintiff is substantially limited in engaging in a major life activity, but Weaving cannot satisfy even the lower standard under current law,” said the majority opinion.

“Given the absence of evidence that Weaving's ADHD affected his ability to work, and in light of the strong evidence of Weaving's technical competence as a police officer, a jury could not reasonably have concluded that Weaving's ADHD substantially limited his ability to work,“ said the ruling by Judge William A. Fletcher.

The court said also Mr. Weaving's interpersonal problems “do not amount to a substantial impairment of his ability to interact with others within the meaning of the ADA.” While his condition may have limited his ability to get along with others “that is not the same as a substantial limitation on the ability to interact with others,” said the ruling, in reversing the lower court ruling.

In a strongly-worded dissent, Judge Consuelo M. Callahan said, “The majority may not like Matthew Weaving — or at least the picture of him that it paints based on a cold record. But the outcomes of our disabled litigants' case should not turn solely on the sympathy they inspire.”

Commenting on the case, defense attorney D. Gregory Valenza, managing partner at law firm Shaw Valenza L.L.P. in San Francisco, said the ruling is important because “the court is taking a stand” and saying just because someone gets a doctor's note stating he sometimes has trouble relating to others, it “doesn't mean he has a disability under the legal standard.”

Read Next