The EEOC filed this suit in August 2005 against Lee's Log Cabin, a Wisconsin restaurant, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. The EEOC alleged the restaurant violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by refusing to hire the complainant because she had HIV.

In June 2006 the defendant's motion for summary judgment was granted. E.E.O.C. v. Lee's Log Cabin, Inc., 436 F.Supp.2d 992 (W.D.Wis.,2006). In its initial complaint the EEOC had alleged that the complainant's disability was her HIV+ status, but the evidence it introduced later, in support of its claim that the complainant was disabled under the ADA definition, all pertained to the impairments brought on by having AIDS, as opposed to merely being HIV+. The court held that being HIV+ and having AIDS were substantially different, and that the EEOC had therefore failed to introduce evidence that HIV itself limited a major life activity, as required by the ADA. Id. at 996. Further, the court ruled that to allow the EEOC to argue that the complainant's disability was AIDS instead of HIV would be a "gross departure from what it alleged in the initial stages of this lawsuit" and that the EEOC "cannot amend its pleading to allege an entirely new cause of action when trial is only one month away." Id. at 995.

Jason Chester - 07/26/2007


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