A private security firm supplying the U.S. Marshals Service with security officers at federal courthouses has a business necessity defense in requiring the officers to pass a hearing test without the help of a hearing aid, the Eleventh Circuit rules.
After the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, and in response to judicial concern with the physical capability of security officers to respond to security threats and other emergency situations, the security officer position was reviewed by the Director of Law Enforcement Medical Programs for the Office of Federal Occupational Health. After observing officers on the job, conducting focus groups with officers, and interviewing judges and Marshals Service personnel about the position, the Director identified several hearing related tasks essential to the security officer position. These included: “comprehending speech during face-to-face conversations, over the telephone, over the radio, and outside the range of sight; hearing sounds that require investigation; and localizing sound,” the Court says. Although officers may wear hearing aids on the job, the Director recommended that candidates pass a hearing test without the help of a hearing aid -- a hearing-aid ban during testing -- to qualify for the position. According to the Director, the hearing aid ban would ensure that all officers can perform effectively in the event their hearing aids experience interference, become dislodged, or otherwise fail on the job. A job candidate who failed the hearing test without his hearing aid sued for disability discrimination.
The Eleventh Circuit says the hearing aid ban is both job-related and consistent with business necessity. “In response to judicial concern, the government sponsored a detailed analysis of the security officer position to identify the essential functions of the job and the medical qualifications necessary to perform it. As a result of that study, the government concluded that officers must possess a certain level of unaided hearing to perform those functions adequately at all times…Because hearing aids may malfunction, break, or become dislodged, the Marshals Service adopted the ban to ensure that all officers can perform their jobs safely and effectively in the event they must rely on their unaided hearing. When considered in the light of the tremendous harm that could result if a security officer could not perform the essential hearing functions of his job at a given moment, we accept this justification as legitimate and wholly consistent with business necessity,” the Court says. Allmond v. Akal Security Inc.
