Dive Brief:
- A Naperville, Illinois, home warranty company will pay $175,000 to settle a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawsuit alleging it violated the Americans with Disabilities Act when it fired an employee because she had a panic attack, the agency announced Oct. 13.
- The employee worked for the company as a dispatcher through a staffing firm, according to the complaint. She performed her duties successfully, the EEOC said. Six months into the job, she told her supervisor that she’d had a panic attack and was taking new medication to treat post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety, according to the EEOC. The next day, he contacted the staffing firm and instructed it to end her assignment because she had a “nervous breakdown,” the lawsuit alleged. Per the suit, the company then fired her, despite being warned by the staffing firm about terminating someone for a medical condition that didn’t affect their performance.
- Individuals with mental health impairments are often “treated as fragile or incapable regardless of how successfully they have fulfilled their role,” Gregory Gochanour, regional attorney for the EEOC’s Chicago office, said in a press release. “In this case, Pivotal punished a good employee for doing nothing more than informing her supervisor about her condition,” he said.
Dive Insight:
Employment attorneys often caution employers that it only takes one uninformed or overzealous manager to trigger a lawsuit. HR departments can minimize this risk by training front-line supervisors and department heads on how to properly respond to information about medical impairments, including anxiety disorders.
Managers and supervisors should understand first that the ADA prohibits employers from treating a qualified employee or applicant unfavorably because of their disability in any aspect of employment, including termination, according to an EEOC guidance. Mental health conditions, such as PTSD, major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder can “easily” be considered disabilities, an EEOC senior attorney advisor recently explained in a webinar.
Before they rush to act, managers and supervisors may need to understand another point: In many instances, disabilities may also be “invisible,” or not obvious, one expert previously told HR Dive. These conditions include back impairments, chronic fatigue, diabetes, PTSD and depression.
A mental or physical condition also may be a disability even if it’s temporary in nature, the EEOC attorney said. One person may have panic attacks for a couple of months and then never experience them again. Another person may have brief anxiety attacks a few times a year. Both may have a mental disability if their condition interrupts major life activities.
Managers and supervisors also may need training on talking with an employee once a disability issue is raised. Employers aren’t obligated by the ADA to invite accommodation requests, according to one expert, but it may be good for employers to be proactive.
For example, if a supervisor suspects a problem, it would be inappropriate to ask, “Do you have depression?” Instead, supervisors can ask how they can help the employee, a mental health advocate told HR Dive earlier this year.
