A subpoena from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for information related to a discrimination claim filed against Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. is overly broad and burdensome, an appellate court said in upholding a lower court ruling denying the agency's application for the subpoena's enforcement.

An EEOC expert said the ruling is significant and likely to be influential.

In June 2010, Jose Morabito, an Argentine national, claimed Miami-based Royal Caribbean violated the Americans with Disabilities Act when it refused to renew his employment contract after he was diagnosed with HIV and Kaposi's sarcoma, according to last week's ruling by the 11trh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta in Equal Employment Opportunity Commission vs. Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. Kaposi's sarcoma is a cancer frequently associated with AIDS.

Royal Caribbean contended in its response to the lawsuit the ADA was inapplicable because Mr. Morabito was a foreign national who was employed on a ship flying under the Bahamas' flag, and because it was complying with the law of the Bahamas, under which its ships are registered.

The EEOC responded by issuing an administrative subpoena that requested a list of all employees who had been discharged, or whose contracts were not renewed, beginning in August 2009, as well as additional details about them.

A magistrate judge recommended that the subpoena be denied on the grounds it was not relevant to Mr. Morabito's charge and compliance would be unduly burdensome, and the U.S. District Court in Miami agreed.

A three-judge panel of the 11trh Circuit upheld both rulings.

“It is not immediately clear … why companywide data regarding employees and applicants around the world with any medical condition, including conditions not specifically covered by the ((Bahamas Maritime Authority) medical standards or similar to Mr. Morabito's, would shed light on Mr. Morabito' s individual charge that he was fired because of his HIV and Kaposi's sarcoma diagnoses,” said the ruling. The information sought is “at best tangentially relevant to Mr. Morabito's individual charge of discrimination.”

The request is also unduly burdensome, said the ruling, in upholding the lower court ruling, noting Royal Caribbean estimated it would need to divert five to seven employees for two months to comply with the subpoena.

Gerald L. Maatman Jr., a partner at Seyfarth Shaw L.L.P. in Chicago, said the ruling is significant, and he anticipates it will be cited by other employers who face EEOC subpoenas. It enables employers to craft a response that states the EEOC subpoena is “overly broad and here's why,” Mr. Maatman said.

In 2013, an appellate court ordered a staffing agency to comply with a broadly worded subpoena issued by the EEOC more than three years earlier on the basis that its objection to the subpoena was filed a day late.