There is a lot of confusion out there about whether alcoholism is a disability. Illegal use of drugs gets exempted from the ADA but alcoholism is a different story. True, you can evaluate a person engaged in excessive use of alcohol in terms of performance as if the alcohol use doesn’t exist, but that is
DOJ PUTS Substance Abuse Programs/Professional Health Programs/Physician Recovery Programs on Notice
Happy thanksgiving week everyone!!!
Today’s blog entry is the complaint, here, and consent decree, here, in U.S. v. City of Blaine, MN. The case has incredible parallels to what is going on in the world of health care professionals and Physician Health Programs (substance abuse programs such as discussed in this case,
ADA and Reasonable Accommodations: The HR (Title I) Version
A few weeks back, I attended a chat seminar put on by the Society for Human Resources Management on reasonable accommodations and the ADA. What happens in that kind of seminar is that people write in their questions online and then knowledge advisors respond. The knowledge advisors are very
NFL and the ADA
For those who are Jewish, I hope you had a nice high holiday season and best wishes on the coming new year.
Sometimes when you start a blog entry, you get all the way through it and realize that what you thought you were going to say turns out to be all crazy. So, you
Essential job functions, Big Time College Football and Alcoholism
Just about everyone on the Internet and in the blogosphere is talking about the filing of Coach Sarkisian’s disability discrimination lawsuit against University of Southern California. All kinds of folks have blogged on it already. Normally, since all kinds of folks have blogged on it, many doing it quite well, I would refrain from commenting.
Alcoholism, Associational Discrimination, Retaliation, and Magic Words
For my Jewish brethren, I hope everyone survived the gauntlet of the Jewish High Holidays, which ended last night. Again, wishing everyone and their families a happy and healthy new year.
Today’s case comes from the United States District Court’s Southern Division in South Dakota and it takes on issues of alcoholism as a disability,
Current User of Illegal Drugs Does Not Mean Actual Use When It Comes to a Recovering Addict
I am back to my Monday postings. In my latest article, just published by the ABA GPSolo magazine, I discussed the legal parameters that an employer is faced with when it comes to dealing with an employee addicted to the Internet. This week’s case continues that line of thought, albeit with respect to alcohol
Is Alcoholism a Disability: Revisiting Miners v. Cargill Communications and the importance of pleadings
Ever since the first edition of my book in 2000 and in every edition since, I have discussed the case of Miners v. Cargill Communications, Inc., 113 F.3d 820 (8th Cir. 1997). That case illustrates the perils of what can happen when an employer perceives someone as being an alcoholic. In that case, the