IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
_______________________________
No. 99-31156
(Summary Calendar)
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EDWARD WILSON,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
CAPITAL TRANSPORTATION CORP.,
Defendant-Appellee.
_________________________________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Louisiana
(97-922-C-M3)
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September 15, 2000
Before HIGGINBOTHAM, WIENER, and BARKSDALE, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM*:
In this appeal from the dismissal of his employment
discrimination suit, asserted under the Americans with Disabilities
Act (“ADA”),1 Plaintiff-Appellant Edward Wilson asks us to reverse
the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of
*
Pursuant to 5th Cir. R. 47.5, the court has determined that
this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except
under the limited circumstances set forth in 5th Cir. R. 47.5.4.
1
42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq.
1
Defendant-Appellee Capital Transportation Corp. (“CTC”).2 Wilson
complains that the district court erred in concluding that, under
the applicable ADA standards, he failed to produce sufficient
evidence that CTC regarded him as disabled by virtue of obesity,
and that his failure to request an accommodation was fatal to his
reasonable accommodation claim.
In our de novo review of this summary judgment case, we have
carefully reviewed the facts as revealed by the record on appeal
and the appellate briefs and record excerpts filed by the parties,
including the ruling of the district court. We are satisfied that
the district court’s judgment dismissing Wilson’s action is free of
error. We therefore affirm for essentially the reasons set forth
by the district court in denying Wilson’s threshold claim that CTC
regarded him as disabled. Because that issue is dispositive, we
decline to address Wilson’s accommodation claim.
To survive summary judgment on his ADA claim as he presented
it, Wilson first must produce evidence that CTC regarded him as
having an impairment that substantially limited one or more major
life activities.3 On appeal, Wilson asserts this claim regarding
two activities: driving and working. Because we decline Wilson’s
2
By consent of the parties, judgment was entered by a
magistrate judge.
3
See, e.g., Talk v. Delta Airlines, Inc., 165 F.3d 1021, 1024
(5th Cir. 1999).
2
invitation to classify driving a major life activity,4 we must
determine whether he has produced evidence that CTC considered him
substantially limited in the major life activity of working.
At most, Wilson has shown that CTC considered him unable to
operate safely some, but not all, of its buses during a time when
the company found that his girth kept the steering wheel from
turning freely and prevented him from turning the steering wheel in
the proper manner. CTC considered Wilson capable at all times of
driving its newer buses and offered to rehire him 13 months after
he was placed on unpaid leave. During that time Wilson had reduced
his weight from 449 to 356 pounds, and CTC found that his size no
longer interfered with the proper operation of the steering wheels.
As this court held in Chandler v. City of Dallas, “[a]n
employer’s belief that an employee is unable to perform one task
with an adequate safety margin does not establish per se that the
employer regards the employee as having a substantial limitation on
4
Driving may be ubiquitous in our society, but we are not
prepared to hold today that driving is a major life activity for
ADA purposes: it is not on the non-exhaustive list of major life
activities (including walking, seeing, and breathing) in the EEOC
regulations, 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(i), and the Second and Fourth
Circuits have found that driving is not a major life activity. See
Colwell v. Suffolk County Police Dep’t, 158 F.3d 635, 643 (2d Cir.
1998), cert. denied, 526 U.S. 1018 (1999); Wyland v. Boddie-Noell
Enters., Inc., 165 F.3d 913, 1998 WL 795173, at *2 n.* (4th Cir.
1998) (unpublished opinion). For the purposes of this case,
driving and working are synonymous, and the analysis applied to the
major life activity of working resolves Wilson’s claim as to
driving, as well.
3
his ability to work in general.”5 The term “substantial
limitation” refers to an inability to perform a class or broad
range of jobs.6 “Evidence of disqualification from a single
position or narrow range of jobs will not support a finding that an
individual is substantially limited from the major life activity of
working.”7
Wilson simply has failed to present sufficient summary
judgment evidence to establish that, within the intendment of the
ADA, CTC regarded him as substantially limited in the major life
activity of working, or even from performing a class or range of
jobs that require driving. Therefore, the district court’s
judgment is
AFFIRMED.
5
2 F.3d 1385, 1393 (5th Cir. 1993). The court in Chandler was
construing the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 701-796, which
defines an individual with a disability in substantially the same
terms in which the ADA defines a disability.
6
See 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(j)(3)(i); Zenor v. El Paso Healthcare
Sys., Ltd., 176 F.3d 847, 860 (5th Cir. 1999); Foreman v. Babcock
& Wilcox Co., 117 F.3d 800, 805 (5th Cir. 1997).
7
Sherrod v. American Airlines, Inc., 132 F.3d 1112, 1120 (5th
Cir. 1998).
4