After a three-and-a-half-day trial, a jury returned a verdict for the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on behalf of a former employee of a Tennessee nursing home who had been fired after requesting intermittent leave to address her anxiety. The former employee was awarded $6,000 in compensatory damages, and the court will award back pay of $6,146.72, the amount stipulated by the parties.
At the trial, the EEOC claimed the nursing home discriminated against the former employee in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) when it fired her from a laundry technician position, despite her ability to do the job, because the facility regarded her as having a physical or mental impairment. The former employee suffered from anxiety throughout her adult life.
The employee had been seeing a doctor regularly and taking medication for her anxiety for years before she started working at the nursing home. She began employment with the facility in February 2015 and worked there until November 2015. She successfully performed her job, and the facility never disciplined her. When she requested intermittent leave to address her anxiety, the facility discharged her after concluding she did not qualify for Family Medical Leave, claiming she was unable to perform her job duties. Later, they offered another reason, alleging she had submitted a fake doctor’s note. The facility, however, never produced the note.
In October 2019, a trial court had dismissed the case, deciding that a reasonable jury could not find that the facility had fired the former employee because it regarded her as having a disability. On Feb. 8, 2021, the Sixth Circuit reversed the trial court’s dismissal of the case. After a three-and-a-half-day trial, on Oct. 25, the jury found for the EEOC.
“This represented a very important case for the EEOC in ensuring protection in the workplace for employees whose employers regard them as having impairments,” said Faye A. Williams, regional attorney for the EEOC’s Memphis District Office. “We are pleased the jury understood that [the nursing home] discharged the employee because it believed she had an impairment in violation of the ADA.”
Williams pointed out that although the nursing home had discharged the former employee in 2015, since COVID-19, anxiety disorders and depressive disorders have increased more than 25 percent.
“We hope this case causes employers to ensure they have procedures in the workplace explaining employees’ rights under the ADA and train their employees on the ADA,” Williams said. “If employers fail to do this, there is a high cost to pay to defend these cases.”
Issue:
To determine whether an individual qualifies for a reasonable accommodation, the individual needs to meet the ADA definitions of “individual with a disability” and “qualified individual with a disability.” The term “qualified,” with respect to an individual with a disability, means that the individual satisfies the requisite skills, experience, education, and other job-related requirements of the individual’s position, such that the individual can perform the essential functions of the position with or without reasonable accommodation. “Essential functions” are the fundamental duties of a job, that is, the outcomes that must be achieved by someone in that position. An agency is required to make reasonable accommodations to the known limitations of a qualified individual with a disability, unless the agency can show that doing so would cause an undue hardship. The Rehabilitation Act and the ADA forbid discrimination with regard to any aspect of employment, including, but not limited to hiring, firing, pay, job assignments, promotions, training, benefits, and any other term or condition of employment.
Discussion Points:
- Review your policies and procedures for the prevention of disability discrimination. Ensure that your state’s laws for preventing disability discrimination are included, and update as needed.
- Train staff about their right to be free from disability discrimination in the workplace. Additionally, train human resource staff on providing reasonable accommodation when requested by employees who have limitations due to disabilities. Document that these trainings occurred and file each signed document in the employee’s education file.
- Periodically audit by reviewing the records of employees who have requested medical leave or workplace accommodations. Determine if reasonable accommodations were requested, available, and authorized for these employees, and if qualified individuals’ requests for medical leave were approved.
