A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that a man with HIV is entitled to a hearing on whether he can legally be denied a spot on the Atlanta police force simply because of his medical condition.
Previously a federal judge dismissed the man's lawsuit seeking a hearing to challenge the legality of the city's decision to not hire him.
In a four-page decision, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sent back to U.S. District Judge Marvin Shoob a lawsuit brought by the 40-year-old man using the pseudonym Richard Roe.
The three-judge panel said attorneys provided by the gay rights group Lambda Legal should have the opportunity to address Atlanta's lawyer's contention that Roe is not qualified to be a police officer because he is HIV positive. The judges also said the lawyers should be allowed to argue that HIV has not been enough to disqualify police candidates in the past and that the city also violated the Americans With Disabilities Act by requiring a medical exam before a job offer was extended.
"This is a great victory for Lambda Legal's client who will now get his chance in court to show how the APD's refusal to hire him was discriminatory and illegal," said Scott Schoettes, Lambda Legal's HIV Project Director." Before the appellate court, the City of Atlanta admitted that there are already HIV-positive police officers serving on the force; now they need to explain why our client should be treated any differently."
The city declined to comment on the decision.
"The APD really needs to rethink its employment practices when it comes to applicants with HIV. They've shown they can ‘talk the talk,' but now they need to ‘walk the walk' by making it clear they will no longer disqualify people from serving simply because they are HIV-positive," said Greg Nevins, Supervising Senior Staff Attorney at Lambda Legal's Southern Regional Office in Atlanta and co-counsel in last year's Atlanta Eagle bar raid case against the APD.
In 2006, Roe moved to Atlanta from Los Angeles, where he was an investigator. He took a position in the taxicab division of the Atlanta Police Department and then applied to be a police officer
Roe passed a written test, a psychological exam, a computerized voice stress analysis test and a background check. Then his blood was drawn as part of a pre-employment physical exam that showed he was HIV positive, a condition he had lived with since 1997. On Sept. 7, 2006, a doctor told Roe that he would be advising the city that he "could not be employed in a position in which he had any contact with the public."
Roe had no more contact with the APD recruiter who had been leading him through the process.
Two years later Roe sue Atlanta.
The appeals court judges said Roe's attorneys should be allowed to argue against the city's position that he is qualified to be a police officer except for "direct threat" he posed to the public.
The judges noted that the city had admitted that it did not test officers already on the force for HIV and that it did not consider HIV a reason to disqualify a police candidate.
Finally, the appeals court said, Shoob should consider whether Atlanta had violated federal law that protects people with disabilities. Roe’s lawyers said the APD violated the Americans With Disabilities Act by giving him the physical before he had been extended a job offer.
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