## Facts

- Vincent L. Chalk was a certified teacher of hearing-impaired students employed by the Orange County Department of Education.
- In February 1987, Chalk was diagnosed with AIDS following an episode of pneumocystis carinii pneumonia.
- After recovering, Chalk was medically cleared to work by his physician and by the employer’s physician/epidemiologist, who concluded his classroom presence posed no HIV transmission risk in ordinary, nonsexual school contact.
- The Department removed Chalk from classroom duties and reassigned him to an administrative position to prevent contact with students.
- Chalk sought to return to classroom teaching; the Department indicated it would pursue legal action to keep him out of the classroom.
- Chalk sued under § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, alleging discrimination by a federally funded employer against an otherwise qualified person with a handicap.
- The district court found any risk of HIV transmission “minimal” but denied a preliminary injunction largely because anticipated fear and anxiety among parents and students, and related community reaction, outweighed Chalk’s harms.
- Chalk sought mandamus relief; the Ninth Circuit treated the matter as an appeal from the denial of a preliminary injunction.

## Issues

1. Whether § 504 permits excluding an employee with AIDS from a teaching position based on speculative risk and anticipated public fear rather than an individualized, medically grounded assessment.
2. Whether the district court abused its discretion in denying a preliminary injunction by misapplying the likelihood-of-success analysis and misweighing the balance of hardships.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit reversed the denial of preliminary injunctive relief.
- The court held Chalk showed a strong likelihood of success on the merits of his § 504 claim.
- The court held the balance of hardships tipped sharply in Chalk’s favor and the district’s asserted harms were largely speculative.
- The case was remanded with instructions to issue a preliminary injunction returning Chalk to classroom teaching.

## Legal Principles

- AIDS may qualify as a “handicap” under § 504, bringing affected individuals within the statute’s protections.
- An employee is not excluded as not “otherwise qualified” unless the employer shows, using reasonable medical judgments based on current medical knowledge, that the employee poses a significant risk to others that cannot be eliminated by reasonable accommodation.
- The risk assessment must be individualized and fact-specific, considering: (1) nature of the risk (mode of transmission), (2) duration of the risk, (3) severity of potential harm, and (4) probability of transmission and resulting harm.
- § 504 does not require a person with a contagious disease to disprove every theoretical possibility of harm; remote or speculative possibilities do not justify exclusion.
- Public fear, apprehension, stigma, and anticipated backlash cannot lawfully substitute for objective medical evidence in determining qualification or in balancing equities for injunctive relief.
- In the preliminary-injunction analysis, irreparable harm may be shown where removal from one’s profession threatens professional standing and emotional well-being, especially where time to continue working is limited by serious illness.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit required that § 504 decisions about employees with contagious diseases rest on objective, individualized medical evidence of significant risk, not community fear, and ordered preliminary relief restoring the teacher to the classroom where the record showed at most minimal, speculative risk.


Chalk v. U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, 840 F.2d 701 (9th Cir. 1988)