ADA???

ss

I have a full time employee with a statisfactory work history who tore all the ligaments in her knee last March. She was on vacation when this happened. She did not qualify for FMLA and could not work at all. I offered her COBRA - she was on COBRA for a short while and I had to cancel it because she was unable to make the payments. She does however have a supplemental disability insurance policy which she pays for. She had kept in touch about her progress, but has had to have physical therapy all of this time and the doctor would not release her for duty.

In early September the doctor was finally releasing her for light duty when she had a car accident and is now under a doctors care for her back. I spoke with her today and the doctor will not let her work for at least another 2 weeks. She has stayed on our payroll all this time because her supervisor says she is a good worker. We have been busy and wanted to bring her straight back if the opportunity came up.

I talked with the manager of this department about going ahead and terminating her employment with the possibility of re-hiring her since it has been so long. He agreed but then I started thinking about ADA. If we were going to terminate, when would have been the best time? I'm not sure what to do - any advice would be great!

Hatchetman

Since she's still an employee of yours, I assume she has been on medicla leave all this time.

If you need to bring her back, you should evaluate whether she is disabled under ADA and whether what reasonable accommodaitons would allow her to perform the esential duties of the job, if she needed reasonable accommodaitons and is ADA disabled.

It may turn out that she isn't disabled under ADA or your state's ADA type law if there is one, but you don't know that until you make the assessment using the "interactive process."

Don D

You should have terminated at your earliest opportunity. This is a significant liability just lurking in the wings for your company. The delaying will cost you.