Dive Brief:

• Appalachian Wood Products, Inc., a Pennsylvania-based cabinet component supplier, violated federal law when it asked job applicants unlawful medical questions and then refused to hire the applicants based on disability or medical treatment, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has alleged in a lawsuit (EEOC v. Appalachian Wood Products, No. 3:18-cv-00198 (W.D. Pa.)).
• EEOC said the company refused to hire an applicant for a factory position because he was taking medically prescribed suboxone, without considering whether it affected his ability to do the job safely. Suboxone is FDA-approved for opiate dependence. EEOC also alleged that, since 2016, the company has barred job applicants from certain positions if they were taking prescribed medications for drug treatment, such as suboxone or methadone, without evaluating whether the medications affect their ability to safety perform the job.
• The company also required job applicants to disclose their use of medications before making conditional job offers and then refused to hire them or assigned them to less-desirable positions based on their answers to the illegal inquiries, EEOC said.

Dive Insight:

An increasing number of employers are grappling with issues presented by the growing opioid addiction crisis, including how best to deal with job applicants receiving treatment for prior addition.

Employers must remember, however, that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits discrimination against those with previous addictions and places strict limits on employers' ability to ask job applicants to answer medical questions, take a medical exam or identify a disability, the EEOC said. Federal law prohibits employers from subjecting applicants to pre-offer offer medical exams or inquiries and strictly regulates post-offer medical examinations so that applicants can be fairly evaluated on their actual qualifications, an EEOC attorney said in a statement.

"Under the ADA, employers may test for illegal drug use, but medically prescribed suboxone or methadone are not illegal drugs. Rather, they are common and effective treatments for individuals recovering from drug addiction, and any possible side effects of those treatments must be assessed on an individualized basis," EEOC Philadelphia District Director Jamie R. Williamson said in a statement.

Training for supervisors — both those involved in hiring and those who work as front-line managers — is key to preventing discrimination, as is the development of workplace policies and procedures that prepare for such situations, experts have said.