Legal ?? for John T and Mike(WA)

Hate to bother you guys for free advice,but it's not for me,it's for inlaws in another state. Concerns the Americans With Disabilities Act.
If an office worker is fired because her performance is slipping,and her performance is slipping because she has parkinsons and memory loss and everyone in the office,including the personel manager knew she had parkinsons and memory loss,have they violated the ADA and is she entitled to compensation? Is the employer in trouble with the Federal Government because they violated the ADA?
When she was first diagnosed,the company DID change her duties to a job that she could handle. Since then,the company has changed hands twice. The personel manager has made the comment to other employees several times that she was tired of hearing about her parkinsons and wished she would just quit. I won't even get into that being a HIPPA violation,just wondered about the violation of the ADA.

You'd be well advised to see an attorney specializing in employment/discrimination matters, and be prepared to pay for it !!
Best of luck on this.
Jim B. in Oregon

A couple of questions that will probably play a big part are was she diagnosed with Parkinsons before or after they hired her, and when and how did her employer learn of it.

She needs to see an attorney who specializes in that area.

She was diagnosed after. Don't know when or how the employer found out. Like I said,the company has changed hands since then. She's had it for going on 8 years.

It's to bad that she has parkinson's but now you want to sue the company and then you wonder why they move to China.

I don't get how that would work (the lawsuit).

I used to own a steel fab shop, so there were a couple of guys there that were full-time welders, say one of them walks in one morning and his arms are numb but he can still weld. Problem is his welds are terrible, no good, unsellable

Do I have to now pay this employee for the rest of his life or get sued under the ADA? Doesn't make sense to me

Best thing I ever did was getting out of the steel business.......

Under ADA they have to make "Reasonable Accomadations" if her disease has progressed to a point where she is no longer able to do the job they can let her go. Examples a truck driver that losses their sight, a phone sales person that losses their voice...A building maintenance person that now is in a wheel chair, A mental health worker that has a stroke leaving them incapicitated, an acholohic that losses their driver's license in a position that requires a insurance acceptable driver's license

I know. We had a teller here at the local bank that went nearly blind. They had to provide her with some kind of magnifying thing that showed the checks,deposit slips,etc in a huge way on a screen,not to mention a special keyboard and calculator. I'm assuming they had to keep her until she was able to get SS disability or something.
In the case of my sister in law,she was written up twice in a two week period for not doing her job satisfactorily,then she was unceremoniously fired. No compensation,no offer to help her get disability,nothing. I've heard that she was replaced by the personal director's sister,but don't know that for absolute sure. that's just the story I heard.

I don't know what stage she may be in , but Parkinson disease has several stages. It also works on the nervous system making normal motor skills imposable as well as the brain to not remember even short term. either one could jeopardize hers and others safety.

I have heard of many stories such a person has left home to go to the store/ work either walking or driving and end up miles away from where they started and didn't know where they were.

Maybe the company has found her to be worsening, and in a way trying to tell her she needs to sign up for a disability type of income.

I can see in some circumstances they could possibly eliminate her job and Lay her off if her workload could be divided amongst other workers. without retaliation. with nothing more than the weeks allowed for Unemployment compensation.

Just my 2¢
Parkinsons Disease

RL, I help when I can and I worked on a somewhat similar case for EIGHT YEARS all the way through a federal appellate court and can tell you dealing with the ADA is NOT something even most attorneys can handle and its far to complex to even get into here on a tractor board absent exhaustive research and alllllll the facts (and thats NOT a few sentences, you wouldnt believe how long and complex those cases are and how many pages and pages of facts need to be determined). Thats a very specialized area of the law not for the faint of heart and only a very few highly specialized and trained attorneys are competent to take on such a case or provide you with any worthwhile opinion.

That being said after years of working on a case I came to realize the employer DOES NOT HAVE TO MAKE EVERY SORT OF ACCOMMODATION IMAGINEABLE OR ANY THAT ARE UNREASONABLE OR ECONOMICALLY UNJUSTIFIED. The legislators didnt intend a company has to go broke to accommodate one employee.

If a person simply cant do the job with certain reasonable accommodations the employer still needs the function performed, so if it takes another who IS qualified, then so be it.
That dont necessarily mean the person is fired, if they can reasonably be reassigned to a job their disability allows them to function in, such may be required.

Sorry, the issue and the law is just far too complex for even an attorney to help you much on here, just realize there are limits on just what the employer is required to do and if the employee cant do the job with reasonable accommodations its sure not any case I or most attorneys would even consider taking on a contingency basis because its months of work with slim chances of winning in my opinion.

Maybe Mike will chime in as Im semi retired but he still practices but I doubt on such a complex specialized issue such as the ADA which may well be more complex then the new health care law lol

Sorry, God Bless n best wishes, seek out a trained professional and ONLY one who specializes in ADA and employment law etc.

John T NOT now and dont ever wanna practice ADA law.

Disability is subjective. I had a law professor in college (it was an elective, I wasn't a law major) who used to use the following example:

Say a neurosurgeon has one of his hands injured in a car accident and no longer has the manual dexterity to perform as a neurosurgeon. He's 100% disabled as a neurosurgeon, but there's no reason he can't function 100% as a teacher, passing all of his accumulated knowledge onto up and coming students.

Unfortunatley she's been handed a raw deal in health, and knowing that there is a time she won't be able to perform her duties fully, Why would you even think of a law suit? Everbody wants to sue! I'm sorry she has a debilitating disease but maybe it's time to quit and stay home. Why does any company have to bear the burden of making sure she has a job? It's like anything else, if you can't do the job it's time to quit, retire and move on. I wish her luck and health. Just my opinoin. Mike

Thanks for the shout-out, but disability law is completely out of my bailiwick. John T's answer below is all I know about the subject, and then some. You need to at least consult with a lawyer who is an expert in the field- a consult shouldn't cost much, and he'll be able to advise you in fairly short order.

Big red flag- if he won't take it on a contingency, but will do it hourly with a big retainer, WATCH OUT!

An employer is required to make a REASONABLE accommodation for a person with a disability. Lawyers will spend days arguing over the term "reasonable".

While the ADA made great strides for the handicapped in public schools and public services it is somewhat limited in what it can do in the "private" work place.

First to be covered is she disabled? According to the brief description given she is not, she has issues (that are getting worse) but she does not have a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities. Most employers can duck the law by using the definition of disabled to exclude their employee. Do they have 15 or more employees - ADA does not apply if they dont.

Then there is the "reasonable" accommodation -what is reasonable? Hiring another employee to check her work isn't reasonable. If she needed extra breaks to rest that could be reasonable or a piece of equipment that would aid her in her job it might be reasonable depending on cost.

Bottom line, she needs legal advice, not off topic advice in a tractor forum.

Thanks John T. I'll pass it along to her.

She could medically retire or get on Social Security disability. If she was/is fired because of a disability or discriminated against at work she can file an EEO complaint.
You can get their number off the internet or a poster at work, they'll ask her basically what her case is about to see if she qualifies then past it to an investigator. Y-all can write it up if there's lost wages, treated different than other employees, etc. She needs a lawyer for arbitration, because they'll probably offer that first.
I doubt the company changing hands has much to do with anything other than by them keeping her they accepted her conditions.
They might say we didn't know of her condition which doesn't hold water because a person only has to be regarded as having such an impairment.
Good luck and anybodies a fool that says quit her job without exploring all options.

If the company changed owners a couple of times, and the employees aren't unionized (no contract) nor does the sale agreement include employee retention, why can't she be immediately eliminated/replaced? Can see where she could get disability benefits.

Figures you'd know all about Social Security claims.