A case involving a Northern Minnesota company raises several interesting points concerning hearing impairments and how to deal with disabled employees. Although the employee involved had in fact worked in the job he applied for, as a production truck driver for another mining company, Hibbing Taconite refused to even interview this person until a charge was filed with the EEOC. When Hibbing interviewed him, they only asked him about his prior job as far as accommodations to deal with his disability. Upon concluding that this would not work at Hibbing, they did not make any effort to enter into any sort of interactive discussion about disabilities and other accommodations. Therefore it was not difficult for the Court to determine that Hibbing had not met its statutory burden for the affirmative defense of direct threat. The Court explained direct threat as being a situation where a significant risk to the health or safety of others is created by a disabled employee, and there is no ability to eliminate it by reasonable accommodation. The Court said for this defense to apply, there must be more than greatly increased risk. Indeed, there must be a high probability for the direct threat affirmative defense to be applicable. In this case, the fact that the employee had worked in the mine pit for another company for nine years without incident was sufficient to overcome Hibbing’s attempt at summary judgment. EEOC & Edstrom v. Hibbing Taconite Co. (Minn. D.C. 2010).