Driving in the vast majority of the United States is almost essential to getting to work, to shop, for recreation and to access most of the things and services that individuals find necessary in everyday life. Sure, mass transit fills some of the gaps but a medical condition that leaves one unable to drive imposes a substantial hardship, one that would seem easily to qualify one as disabled under the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). The answer, however, varies depending on the court and when the condition arose.
The amendments to the ADA and its implementing regulations provide more explicit recognition that inability to drive imposes a disability under the ADA. The ADAAA regs issued by the EEOC speak to the inability to drive as disqualifying one from a broad class of jobs thereby making one disabled:
"A class of jobs may be determined by reference to the nature of the work that an individual is limited in performing (such as commercial truck driving ...) or by reference to job-related requirements that an individual is limited in meeting (for example, jobs requiring ... driving ...)."
The caselaw prior to the ADAA is more mixed. There are a number of cases indicating that driving is a major life activity: Weiss-Clark v. Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of the Northwest, 2001 WL 204823 (D. Or. 2001); U.S. v. City and County of Denver, 49 F. Supp. 2d 1233 (D. Colo. 1999), aff'd on other grounds sub nom Davoll v. Webb, 194 F.3d 1116 (10th Cir. 1999); Norris v. Allied-Sysco Food Services, Inc., 948 F. Supp. 1418, 1434 n.13 (N.D. Cal. 1996), aff'd on other grounds, 191 F.3d 1043 (9th Cir. 1999)(“The jury also could have concluded that Norris's back injury substantially limited her ability to drive, and the jury could have reasonably felt that, at least in California, driving is a major life activity.”). See also Brady v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 455 F. Supp. 2d 157, 168 (E.D.N.Y. 2006).
Similarly, a number of cases hold that driving limitations may substantially limit working: Brady v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 531 F.3d 127 (2d Cir. 2008) (may preclude a “broad range of jobs”); Black v. Roadway Express, Inc., 297 F.3d 445, 453 n.12 (6th Cir. 2002) (recognizing truck driving as a class of jobs); Tate v. Farmland Industries, Inc., 268 F.3d 989, 1000 (10th Cir. 2001); Best v. Shell Oil Co., 107 F.3d 544, 548 (7th Cir. 1997) (statements by employer's agents that plaintiff was restricted from a wide variety of truck-driving jobs was sufficient to suggest employer regarded plaintiff as substantially limited in working); Irizarry v. Mid Florida Community Services, Inc., 2009 WL 2135113, at *4 (M.D. Fla. 2009); Broughton v. City of Jacksonville, 2008 WL 2704420, at *3 (M.D. Fla. 2008) (passenger driving is a class of jobs); Russo v. Sysco Food Services of Albany, L.L.C., 488 F. Supp. 2d 228, 235 N.D.N.Y. 2007) (belief that plaintiff with epilepsy could not safely drive a variety of vehicles); Skomsky v. Speedway SuperAmerica, L.L.C., 267 F. Supp. 2d 995, 1003 (D. Minn. 2003) (truck driving is a class of jobs). See also Winsley v. Cook County, 563 F.3d 598 (7th Cir. 2009) (although inability to drive might interfere with the major life activity of working, employee failed to demonstrate that it foreclosed her from class or broad range of jobs).
There are, of course, a few courts that flatly reject the notion that driving is a major life activity including the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which is headquartered in Atlanta, a place where hundreds of thousands of daily commuters might question the notion that driving is not a major life activity. Nonetheless, see Chenoweth v. Hillsborough County, 250 F.3d 1328 (11th Cir. 2001).
