ADA
HUNTER
2 Posts
One of our employees has a preeixisting injury to his ankle. Several years ago it was crushed when a car fell on it. He has seen a ortho.doctor resently and the ortho. doctor called me to ask if we could put the employee in a job that would allow him to set most of the time. I agreed, and we trained the employee to operate a forklift. According to the ortho. doctor the employees problem with his ankle now is the employee weighs over 400 lbs. The doctor has suggested to the employee that his situation with his ankle would improve if he would loose some weight. At that time the employee weighed 375 lbs. The employee actually gained weight from then to now. I would like to require the employee to loose weight in order to keep his job. Loosing weight would be best for the employee as well as the company. Where do I stand leagally? Any suggestions?
Comments
Based upon what you posted, the issue is whether or not the employee could be considered disabled under ADA when a combination of medical conditions, neither of which by themselves would qualify as a disability, significantly impair one or more major life activities (in this case standing or walking, I assume).
Given your post, it appears that the ankle injury's impact on the employee's ability to stand or walk is excerbated by his morbid obesity. Otherwise, it doesn't appear that the ankle injury significiantly impairs his abiilty to stand or walk in comparison to the average individual (at least you didn't say that it does).
Variation in normal weight is not considered a disability. Whether or not "moribd obesity" (over 100 pound above the individual's optimal weight) would be a qualifying imapirment is not established by court rulings because morbid obesity may not substantially impair one or more major life activities in the average person who his morbidly obese.
So, it falls back to the "combination issue" to look at. EEOC has indicated that an individual who has two or more impairments that are not substantially limiting by themselves but that together substantially limit one or more major life activities has a disability. This can be fond in EEOC's "Executive Summary: Compliance Manual Section 902, Definition of the Term 'Disability'.' The document can be found at [url]http://www.eeoc.gov/docs/902sum.html[/url]
You should talk to legal counsel before you do anything regarding his employment status or any other action involving his assignment or requested accommodations because in practice you may have already regarded him as disabled by re-assigning him to the forklift.
EEOC does encourage employers to have Wellness Programs for employees without then holding that the employer regarded the individuals as disabled. However, an employee's participation in a Wellness Program has to be voluntary. If you have an EAP program, you may want to suggest to the employee to take advantage of weight control counseling but you can't mandate it. The employee's information obtained by the weight control program would need to be confidential from management. Again, take a look at EEOC's Enforcment Guidance - Disability Related Inquiries and Medical Examinations of Employees Under ADA (July 2000), Questions 20 through 23. This document can be found at [url]http://www.eeoc.gov/docs/guidance-inquiries.html[/url] .