Legal Column
BY BOB GREGG
How the ADA Impacts
Your Company
Americans with Disabilities
Act (ADA)
The ADA prohibits public and
private employers, employment
agencies and labor unions from
discriminating against qualified
individuals with disabilities. Here
are some recent ADA rulings:
»Employees must be proactive
in accommodation. A truck driver’s
leg condition resulted in medical
restrictions preventing him from
lifting and unloading. He could no
longer perform his delivery-driver
job, but the only open positions
within his restrictions required a
commercial driver’s license. The
company encouraged him to test for
that license, but he failed to follow
through. He was terminated due to
no work being available, and he then
sued. In McLain v. Anderson Corp.,
the court found in favor of the
company. There is no duty under the
ADA to create a special position. The
company offered an open driver job;
the employee was obligated to be
proactive in seeking to meet the job
requirements (8th Cir., 2009).
»The relapse of a condition is a
covered disability. An administrative aide’s chronic fatigue syndrome
(CFS) had been in remission for 17
years before she started working
for the company. More than a year
after being hired, she had a relapse
and requested accommodation for
the disability. Instead, the aide was
fired. The reason given was that she
had “falsified” her pre-employment
medical evaluation by not revealing
CFS on the medical questionnaire.
The court ruled against the company; the questions did not specifically
include CFS as a condition. After
17 symptom-free years, it’s unlikely
that a reasonable person would
understand that CFS might be
included in “blood conditions.” The
court found the company’s reason
for discharge to be pretextual. EEOC
v. Chevron Phillips Chemical Corp.
(5th Cir., 2009).
»A person with a disability must
provide medical information to
verify his or her claim of disability.
An applicant for a jailor position
tested positive for PCP in a pre-employment drug test. She claimed
that this was a result of two prescription medications she took to
control a seizure disorder. She later
took a re-test, at her own expense,
with a negative result. But she failed
to provide the requested medical
evidence that her prescription drugs
could have caused the PCP-positive
result on the earlier test. The county
refused to hire her, and she sued
under the ADA. In Ozee v. Henderson
County, the court granted summary
judgment to the county. In this case,
a person must medically verify he or
she is actually taking certain medications and that the medications
actually have the effects that they
claim ( W.D. Kentucky, 2009).
»An employee’s idiosyncrasies,
unless extreme, are not sufficient
to put an employer on notice that
he or she might have a disability.
No one was aware of an employee’s
diagnosed obsessive-compulsive
disorder (OCD). He made no
