Editor’s Note – Mark Lies II is a labor and employment law attorney and partner with the Chicago, IL, law firm of Seyfarth Shaw. Legal topics provide general information, not specific legal advice. Individual circumstances may limit or modify this information.
Introduction
As the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) continues to be interpreted by the courts, employers are frequently in a quandary about how to deal with employees who claim to be disabled due to alcoholism and stress. Recent court decisions have provided some clarification.
Alcoholism
In a recent case, Bailey v. Georgia-Pacific Corporation, the employee had suffered from alcoholism since the 1970s. He had been an employee of Georgia-Pacific since 1987. The company terminated him for absenteeism when he was unable to show up for work due to incarceration for drunk driving. The employee claimed that he had a disability – alcoholism – and that the employer should not have terminated him. Instead, he claimed that he should have had his disability “accommodated” by the company by agreeing to supervise him in a work-release program that would allow him to avoid incarceration.
Despite the plaintiff’s history of difficulty with alcohol – including occasional refusal of overtime shifts due to his drinking and one instance of being sent home from work for suspected intoxication – the court found that the plaintiff did not qualify as “disabled” under the ADA.
In order to qualify as disabled under the ADA, an employee must prove that the alleged disability (alcoholism) substantially limits the employee in a major life activity. In this case, the plaintiff argued that his major life activity was working. The court found that the plaintiff had failed to establish that he was substantially limited in his ability to work by the alcoholism. In fact, the plaintiff was unable to prove that he was restricted in his ability to perform a class of jobs, as well as a broad range of jobs in various classes. In addition, he failed to prove he was substantially limited in his ability to carry out his own job. The decision is also noteworthy because the court upheld the employer’s determination that the employee was an alcoholic but did not consider that the employee was disabled from working in a class of jobs.
This case is important because it reaffirms that an employer does not have to permit an employee who has alcohol abuse problems to continue working (especially if the employee fails to meet reasonable performance standards) without the risk of having considered the employee “disabled” under the ADA. Obviously, in any instance where the employer decides to take action against such employee, it is essential that it carefully document the employee’s behavioral or performance problems to defend against a potential claim.
Stress-Related Conditions
Frequently, employers are faced with employee claims that an employee has a job-related stress condition that the employee believes to be a “disability” under the ADA, thus requiring the employer to provide an accommodation.
In Carroll v. Xerox Corp., the employee was a sales manager in the company’s New England business unit. After a series of reductions in force and creation of new aggressive sales targets, the employee began to experience chest pains that he claimed were due to job stress. The employee was granted a three month disability leave. He then applied for a lower paying, non-managerial sales position in Texas. The company transferred the employee to this position and he retired two years later.
In ruling against the employee, the court noted that while a stress-related condition could constitute a “disability,” the employee’s condition did not reach the level of severity to be protected for several reasons.
First, the stress-related condition, which caused chest pain and stomach spasms, was relatively mild and short-lived. Second, the condition did not prevent the employee from performing other jobs, including the lower level sales position. This case is instructive because it supports an employer’s right to establish high performance standards for a job, even if it causes increased job stress without inevitably facing a liability finding of an employee claim of “disability” resulting from such employee physical symptoms of stress.
Conclusion
These cases demonstrate that an employer can require certain standards of employee performance without inevitable ADA liability, as long as it carefully documents the employee’s actions and the basis for employment action.
Labor and the Law - April 2003 Render