Court allows HIV lawsuit against American Airlines

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Three applicants denied flight attendant jobs at American Airlines can sue even though they lied about their HIV-positive status, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday.

American made tentative job offers in 1998 and 1999 to Walber Leonel, Richard Branton and Vincent Fusco pending medical and background checks. Blood tests found the men were HIV positive, a condition they declined to list on a medical history form in their applications, and the job offers were rescinded.

The men sued American, a unit of AMR Corp., claiming the airline had acted improperly and that the blood tests violated their right to privacy. A lower court dismissed the cases, but the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals based in San Francisco ruled the men had a right to a hearing.

In its ruling the 9th Circuit found American did not justify its medical testing before it had completed its background checks. It also said privacy may have been violated as the job applicants did not consent to all testing of their blood and may have been misled on the nature of the testing.

“Many hidden medical conditions, like HIV, make individuals vulnerable to discrimination once revealed,” Judge Raymond Fisher wrote for a three-judge panel. Existing laws “allow applicants to keep these conditions private until the last stage of the hiring process.”

“Applicants may then choose whether or not to disclose their medical information once they have been assured that as long as they can perform the job’s essential tasks, they will be hired.”

The decision sent the case back to a U.S. district court for reexamination.

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