Nurse Unable To Lift Or Restrain Patients: Job Discrimination Claims
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
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Quick Summary: Whether assisting, lifting, moving, transferring and restraining patients are essential functions of a particular nurse's job must be decided on a case-by-case basis under disability discrimination law.
If an employee is terminated or treated adversely for filing a worker's compensation claim, the employee can sue the employer for damages.
U.S. DISTRICT COURT, TEXAS, 1994.A nurse had a pre-existing spinal fusion which left her with moderate restrictions on stooping and heavy lifting. She also suffered from myasthenia gravis. She injured her back on the job while attempting to lift an obese geriatric psychiatry patient. A month later she injured her back, shoulders and neck while attempting to restrain a combative psychiatric patient. Both injuries were promptly reported to her nursing supervisor. Her doctor wrote a letter, after these incidents, that she was not to attempt to lift patients, due to her myasthenia gravis.
The nurse was assigned to non-nursing clerical duties, then dismissed outright, allegedly because of her inability to participate in direct patient care.
The nurse filed suit in Federal District Court in Texas, claiming disability discrimination and wrongful discharge.
In her suit the nurse did not dispute that she was unable to perform certain functions associated with her job. Rather, she contended that transferring patients, restraining patients and other duties involving heavy lifting were not essential functions of the job. The court ruled that it must be decided on a case-by-case basis whether or not certain heavily physical tasks are essential functions of the job.
If an employee has a disability, but is otherwise able to perform the essential functions of his or her job, the employee cannot be subject to employment discrimination for being unable to perform physical tasks which are not fully essential to the employee's job.
The court would not rule categorically that certain heavy physical tasks are or are not essential functions of a particular nursing specialty, such as psychiatric nursing which was the focus of this case. The truly essential demands of any nursing position must be defined on a case-by-case basis for purposes of disability discrimination. The policy of the law, it should be noted, is to assure that disabled individuals receive evenhanded treatment in relation to non-disabled individuals, according to the court.
The law is well settled in Texas and in other states that it is illegal discriminatory or retaliatory employer conduct to terminate a worker or treat a worker adversely because the worker has filed a worker's compensation claim. If such an employee is fired or treated adversely, the employer is required to show a legitimate, non-discriminatory, non-retaliatory justification.
Gauthreaux vs. Medical Center, 879 F. Supp. 634 (N.D. Tex., 1994).More references from nursinglaw.com
http://www.nursinglaw.com/backinjury.htm
http://www.nursinglaw.com/backinjury2.htm
http://www.nursinglaw.com/back-problem-disability-discrimination.htm
http://www.nursinglaw.com/back-injury-patient-lift.htm
http://www.nursinglaw.com/lifting2.htm
http://www.nursinglaw.com/lifting3.htm
http://www.nursinglaw.com/lifting4.htm