Couldn't they have found him something on the "Help Desk?"

That crazy Ninth Circuit. Even a liburol has to scratch the head.

In 1982, Joshua L. Josephs was charged with trying to murder a quadriplegic former high school classmate, Kip Hayes, by unplugging his respirator. Mr. Josephs was found not guilty by reason of insanity and spent two and half years in a state mental hospital.

Mr. Josephs did not disclose any of this when he applied for a job as a service technician, installing and repairing phone lines in people's homes, at Pacific Bell in 1997. When the company found out, it fired him. A short while later, it refused to rehire him.

On Tuesday, a divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, affirmed a $500,000 jury verdict for Mr. Josephs, saying the company had violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by discriminating against him on the basis of mental impairment when it refused to rehire him.

"While PacBell's counsel testified that it was her 'belief' that someone who attempted to kill another person should not be in a service technician position," Judge Edward Leavy wrote for the majority, "PacBell introduced no evidence of a written company policy prohibiting employment of person who had committed violent acts. In fact, the jury heard evidence that PacBell had reinstated one service technician who had a domestic violence conviction."

I believe I can hear PacBell's lawyers rewriting that policy document as we, well, whatever it is we're doing: "Attempted murder -- even by reason of insanity -- is deemed to be in opposition to the company's mission statement and will not be tolerated."

Just another instance of that crazy, liburol, pledge-hatin' ninth circuit, right? Um, not so much.

A dissenting judge on the Ninth Circuit court, Consuelo M. Callahan, wrote that the majority's decision put employers like Pacific Bell to a difficult choice.

Were Mr. Josephs "to gain entrance to a customer's home and attack a customer" while on the job, Judge Callahan wrote, the "potential liability to Pac Bell is obvious and sizable."

"Unless it is determined that Pac Bell's concern that Josephs is dangerous is unreasonable," she added, "Pac Bell should not be required to send him into its customers' homes."

Judge Callahan was appointed by President Bush. Judge Leavy, who wrote the majority decision, was appointed by President Ronald Reagan; he was joined by Judge Susan P. Graber, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton.

Gregory I. Rasin, who practices employment law at Jackson Lewis in New York, said the decision was "a disturbing result for employers." But Mr. Rasin added that it was a routine application of the law to the available facts.

"You cannot discriminate against someone because of their disability or because you perceive them to have a disability," Mr. Rasin said. "Clearly, if you can show them to be a danger, that's a different situation. But they didn't show that here."