ADA question

Tammy

One of our employees who has been with the organization for 15 years, has been having significant attendance issues, both legitimate and not. Seemingly, according to this employee, her health issues have been growing progressively worth and the employee always provides documentation substatiating her health issues. There is no question that she is not a healthy person and, therefore, will always have a note from the Doctor, even if the occurance is not of a great significance. Recently she began using a wheelchair, because she states that her leg needs to be elevated.
To get into the building, she is asking her co-workers to come down in the morning and help her get the wheelchair out of the car and wheel her to the workplace, same in the evening, breaks, lunches, and going to meetings.

According to her Dr. note, this is at least a 3 months condition to be re-evaluated later.

The concern is that the employees:

1. Take time away from their duties to wheel her around
2. There is a danger of getting a worker's comp claim if one of them injures herself pushing the heavy wheelchair.

The question is:

1. Does the disability have to be permanent in order to qualify for ADA?
2. If so, does ADA accomodation require assistance from the car to the building, or does ADA cover only accomodation within the building and it is the employee's responsibility to make arrangements to get inside and outside the building?
3. What type of accomodation would you consider to accomodate this employee?

You responses are greatly appreciated.

Don D

ADA covered disabilities are not of a temporary or transient nature, nor do they include someone independently deciding to slap themselves into a wheelchair and insist co-workers haul them around. I would immediately suspend from work without pay and require a 'fitness for duty' report before returning her to work. If not satisfied, I would send her to a physician of my choice. And I wouldn't be responsible for wheeling her to the examination. Without a psychological evaluation, I'm not sure whether she's setting you up for a workers' comp claim or simply wanting sympathy from her co-workers. Just my humble but sinister opinion. x:-)

mwild31

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 11-09-04 AT 03:24PM (CST)[/font][br][br]Hi Tammy

For your first question, you really need to check with your state first. Federal laws say that the ADA doesn't apply to temporary conditions, but state laws could say the opposite (they do in WA). That said, because you folks are so accommodating right now with wheeling her to and from her car to work, to meetings, etc., this person could be "disabled" because she is being regarded (perceived to be disabled) by others as having an impairment - so, some provisions of the ADA might apply.

So, here's a suggestion for your next steps. Get a fitness for duty note from her doctor. Next, ask yourself, do you really want to sit in front of the judge and say you denied accommodation because no one wanted to leave his or her desk to run out to the ee’s car and wheel her in? This seems kind of cold hearted – at least it will when her attorney paints the picture. Unless you are talking about an unduly extensive or extreme financial hardship here, I think this accommodation is relatively painless and cheap. Finally, I wish there were italics here to emphasize this point: train your folks not to treat people as if they have disabilities without medical documentation in their file. Whenever someone says they need an accommodation - one of the first things that should happen is a meeting between HR and the employee to discuss whether the ee is qualified for ADA protection, whether or not the illness or condition is an impairment (and not excluded from ADA protection) and what if any possible accommodation arrangements can be made. Good luck, check to see what your state laws are with this link:


[url]http://www.know-the-ada.com/adahistory.htm[/url]