fmla leave
angieje
1 Post
employee was hired while pregnant. Employer aware of pregnancy. the employer is a retailer and the employee was hired as a customer service person whose duties included stocking some items. She can stock items if the items can be retrieved from a shopping cart and the items do not weigh 15 pounds. the job requires lifting more than fifteen pounds. Employee cannot lift more than fifteen pounds. Most of the time she will not have to lift fifteen pounds However, there may be sometimes she will have to lift more than fifteen pounds. The employer has placed her on fmla leave. Is this proper? is there a violation of ada?
Comments
ADA: Because of its temporary nature, pregnancy is not considered a "disability." If, however, the employee is experiencing some sort of substantial complications that limit a major life activity (e.g. diabetes, depression, high blood pressure...etc.), she may be entitled to an accommodation. Her lifting restrictions sounds like a run of the mill pregnancy limitation.
PDA: One law that you probably need to worry about is the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (as well as any similar state laws). To comply, you simply need to treat pregnancy like any other similar short-term disability. Have you ever had to deal with a non-pregnant employee who could not lift 15 lbs? If so, how did you handle the situation? Is this one being handled similarly? I'd take a close look at this issue to be safe.