Should You Tell an Employer About Your Chronic Pain?
Pain News Network
Telling your boss or a potential employer about your chronic pain condition can be slippery slope.
If you disclose it, you may wind up dealing with judgments and misguided attitudes from supervisors and coworkers about the extent of your chronic pain. On the other hand, if you don’t disclose it, you may miss out on accommodations you need and are entitled to.
There is always going to be risk when you disclose. And it is hard to know whether an employer will be accommodating or treat you unfairly.
You do have rights as an employee and a person living with chronic pain. You should know what they are before you decide whether to disclose.
Managing the Interplay Between the ADA, FMLA and WC
The National Law Review
The following description may seem quite familiar to those who deal with employee issues on a daily basis. Your employee, who has a physically demanding job on the factory floor, has been out on leave for an injury that he contends is work-related. However, your worker’s compensation insurance carrier has recently denied coverage. Additionally, the employee also has used FMLA intermittently to care for the serious health condition of his spouse before going out on his current leave. And the employee would like to come back to work but his medical condition prevents him from regularly lifting more than 20 lbs., an essential function of the position. In the meantime, the supervisor is complaining and wants an employee who can do the job right now. What are your next steps?
Reasonable Accommodation and a Qualified Individual with a Disability
The National Law Review
In Severson v. Heartland Woodcraft, Inc., No. 15-3754, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 18197 (7th Cir. Sept. 20, 2017), the Seventh Circuit held that an employee who needs long-term medical leave cannot work and thus is not a qualified individual under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Changing of the Leaves: EEOC Again Pushes for Additional Leave as ADA Accommodation
JD Supra
We have said it before — the EEOC believes that leave is a reasonable accommodation and automatic termination when FMLA leave runs out violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. Even though at least one federal court has made clear it disagrees, the EEOC continues to press the point and has recently filed a lawsuit against the Blood Bank of Hawaii for failure to provide reasonable accommodations for and then firing employees who required additional leave time for their disabilities.
The New York City Human Rights Law Does Not Permit Disability Discrimination Claims Based On Erroneous Perception of Untreated Alcoholism - At Least For Now
Lexology
Those of us who represent employers in New York are quite familiar with the incredible breadth of the New York City Human Rights Law (CHRL), which was amended in 2005 with the legislative intent that it serve “uniquely broad and remedial purposes” and be “construed liberally.” Yet in a surprising move, on October 17, 2017, the New York State Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state, ruled that the CHRL is narrower in scope and protection than either its federal or state counterparts in one specific area: it does not allow a plaintiff to sue for disability discrimination based solely on mistaken perception that s/he had untreated alcoholism.
Is HR a 'high-risk' job that warrants drug testing?
HR Dive
- A federal district court judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that D.C.'s controlled substance tests for employees ran afoul of federal law (Lewis v. Government of the District of Columbia, No. 1:15-cv-00521 (D.D.C. Oct. 18, 2017)).
- The city adopted a new drug and alcohol test requirement for employees in "high-risk or sensitive positions." An HR rep refused and was fired. She sued, alleging that the requirement went beyond the Americans with Disabilities Act's (ADA) limits on such tests.
- The city asked the judge to dismiss her claims, arguing that she couldn't challenge the tests because she hasn't shown that she has a disability. The judge, however, said the ADA didn't require such a showing for medical inquiry claims and refused to dismiss the suit, noting that a jury may have to decide whether the tests were job-related, as required by the ADA.