This post is part of our Blog Symposium “Applying the Americans with Disabilities Act and Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act to the NFL Workplace.” Background on the symposium and links to other blog posts are here.
In our recent law review article, published by the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, my co-authors and I explore exactly what kinds of player health data the NFL and its Clubs can lawfully obtain from NFL hopefuls, as well as from current players. While the Clubs and the NFL have strong interests in accessing all kinds of information about players, current federal employment laws—mainly the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act—limit the collection of employee health data. Significantly, these statutes not only restrict how an employer can use its employees’ health data. They also restrict the ability of the employer to even ask. Among the major takeaways of our paper was that, via National Football Scouting, the NFL and its Clubs may be violating these laws with the interviews and medical examinations that take place during the National Scouting Combine. Our article focused primarily on evaluative technologies: things like physicals, athletic drills, wearables, ingestibles, and genetic tests. But what about when the source of the player health data is not a technique or technology but rather simply a medical record? In this blog post, I take a closer look at how the ADA and GINA apply to requests for medical records.
Medical Waivers at the Combine
As explored in-depth in a recent installment of this blog symposium, prospective players are particularly vulnerable because they are not yet members of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA), and thus cannot reap the benefits of the collective bargaining agreements it negotiates. The inferior bargaining position of aspiring players is particularly apparent considering the medical waivers they sign to even participate in the Combine. One waiver authorizes a mind-bogglingly long list of parties—including health care providers, physicians, mental health professionals, hospitals, schools, student health services, and former trainers and teams, even at the amateur level—to release and to discuss the players’ medical records with an equally long list of potential recipients—including National Football Scouting, the NFL and all its Clubs, their representatives, agents, medical staff, team physicians, and trainers, in addition to third-party physicians. The player consents to share: Read More