Specific Causation Evidence Is Required for Health-Risk-Based Disability Accommodations

Introduction

In Friedman v. Central Maine Power Company, the First Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Central Maine Power Company (“CMP”) in a disability-discrimination suit brought by Ed Friedman, a former CMP customer with lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma, a rare incurable blood cancer.

Friedman sought to retain an analog electricity meter without paying CMP’s opt-out fee, arguing that radiofrequency (“RF”) radiation from CMP’s digital “smart meters” could worsen his cancer symptoms. CMP refused to waive the fee, and Friedman sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act, and the Fair Housing Act.

The central issue was evidentiary: whether Friedman had produced admissible evidence that exposure to CMP’s smart meter would pose a non-speculative risk of worsening his own condition. The First Circuit held that he had not.

Summary of the Opinion

The court affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment to CMP. It held that Friedman’s reasonable-accommodation claims failed because he lacked admissible specific-causation evidence connecting smart-meter RF radiation to a risk of harm to his particular medical condition.

Friedman’s retained experts were permitted to testify only about general causation—whether RF radiation could harm some people in some circumstances—but not about whether CMP’s smart meter would affect Friedman specifically. His treating physicians’ opinions on specific causation were excluded because they were expert opinions disclosed too late.

The court also rejected Friedman’s ADA surcharge claim. Because the record did not show that waiver of the opt-out fee was a required accommodation, the fee could not be treated as an unlawful surcharge under the ADA regulations.

Analysis

Precedents Cited

Precedent	Role in the Opinion
Cruz-Cedeño v. Vega-Moral	Supplied the summary-judgment rule that facts are viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party.
Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc.	Framed the expert-admissibility challenge to Friedman’s RF-radiation experts. The district court limited them to general causation, and Friedman did not appeal that limitation.
Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife	Provided the Article III standing test: injury in fact, causation, and redressability, supported at summary judgment by admissible evidence.
TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez	Reinforced that an injury must be concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent.
Jones v. L.A. Cent. Plaza LLC	Supported the principle that standing at summary judgment requires evidence, not mere allegations.
In re Evenflo Co., Mktg., Sales Pracs. & Prods. Liab. Litig.	Confirmed that standing and merits are normally distinct inquiries, although the court treated them together here because both turned on causation evidence.
Valentin v. Hosp. Bella Vista and Concilio de Salud Integral de Loíza, Inc. v. Pérez-Perdomo	Supported the court’s decision to address jurisdictional and merits issues through a single inquiry when the facts are intertwined.
Dudley v. Hannaford Bros.	Supplied the elements of a Title III ADA reasonable-accommodation claim, especially the requirement that the requested modification be “necessary.”
Summers v. City of Fitchburg, Serrano-Colon v. DHS, and Astralis Condo. Ass’n v. Sec’y, HUD	Allowed the court to analyze Friedman’s ADA, FHA, and Rehabilitation Act reasonable-accommodation theories under substantially the same standard.
Appleton v. Nat’l Union Fire Ins. and Sutherland v. Peterson’s Oil Serv., Inc.	Set out the de novo standard of review and the general summary-judgment standard.
Samaan v. St. Joseph Hosp., Harriman v. Hancock County, and Santiago-Díaz v. Laboratorio Clínico y de Referencia del Este	Guided review of the exclusion of late-disclosed expert testimony. These cases supported the “baseline rule” that untimely expert evidence is ordinarily precluded.
United States v. Betro, United States v. Wells, Davoll v. Webb, and Gómez v. Rivera Rodríguez	Explained the boundary between treating-physician fact testimony and expert testimony. Treating physicians may describe treatment and observations, but causation opinions often require expert qualification.
Williams v. Mast Biosurgery USA, Inc. and Travelers Prop. Cas. Co. of Am. v. Ocean Reef Charters LLC	Supported the conclusion that hypothesizing about medical causation is expert testimony, not lay testimony.
Dare v. California	Supported the surcharge ruling: if a fee is for a measure not required by the ADA, the surcharge inquiry ends.
Hochendoner v. Genzyme Corp.	Clarified that the court was not saying Friedman lacked standing at the pleading stage; plausibility at dismissal is different from proof at summary judgment.

Legal Reasoning

The court’s reasoning turned on the “necessity” element of a reasonable-accommodation claim. Friedman did not merely prefer an analog meter; he claimed that waiver of CMP’s opt-out fee was medically necessary because a smart meter could worsen his lymphoma or symptoms.

To prove that point, he needed admissible evidence of specific causation. General causation evidence—that RF radiation may pose risks in some settings—was insufficient. The missing link was evidence that CMP’s smart meter would create a non-speculative risk of harm to Friedman himself.

The court rejected Friedman’s argument that the district court had demanded certainty. Even under Friedman’s preferred standard—proof of a meaningful risk of worsening symptoms—the record failed because his admissible expert evidence did not address his individual medical condition or expected smart-meter exposure.

The treating physicians could not fill the gap. Their proposed statements about how RF radiation would affect Friedman’s cancer treatment or symptoms were not ordinary factual observations from treatment. They were medical-causation opinions requiring expert disclosure under Rule 26. Because Friedman disclosed them too late, after years of litigation and after expert deadlines had passed, the district court acted within its discretion in excluding them.

Impact

The opinion is significant for disability-accommodation litigation involving alleged environmental or technological health risks. It establishes that a plaintiff cannot survive summary judgment with generalized scientific concerns alone. Where the requested accommodation depends on a claimed medical risk, the plaintiff must timely present admissible evidence connecting that risk to the plaintiff’s own condition.

The decision also warns litigants that treating physicians cannot be used as last-minute substitute experts. If a treating doctor will testify about causation, prognosis, or the medical necessity of an accommodation beyond firsthand treatment observations, the party must comply with expert-disclosure rules.

Finally, the surcharge holding limits ADA fee challenges. A fee is not an unlawful ADA surcharge unless it charges the individual for an accommodation actually required by the ADA. The court expressly left open whether a fee charged to all members of a class can ever be an unlawful surcharge.

Complex Concepts Simplified

General causation: Evidence that something can cause harm in general—for example, that RF radiation might affect health under some circumstances.
Specific causation: Evidence that the alleged cause is likely to affect this particular person in this particular situation.
Reasonable accommodation: A change to a policy or practice needed to give a person with a disability equal access to a service or benefit.
Necessity: The accommodation must be needed to provide equal access; it is not enough that it would be preferred or reassuring.
Treating physician testimony: A treating doctor may testify about what they observed and did during treatment, but opinions about causation often count as expert testimony.
ADA surcharge: A prohibited extra fee imposed on a person with a disability to cover an accommodation required by the ADA.

Conclusion

Friedman v. Central Maine Power Company confirms that health-risk-based accommodation claims require timely, admissible, plaintiff-specific causation evidence. Because Friedman’s admissible evidence showed only general concerns about RF radiation, and because his treating physicians’ causation opinions were properly excluded as untimely expert testimony, his ADA, FHA, and Rehabilitation Act claims failed.

The ruling strengthens the evidentiary gatekeeping role of expert-disclosure rules and clarifies that ADA surcharge liability depends on whether the underlying accommodation is legally required.