Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Employer Need Not Make Reasonable Accommodation to Home Health Aide's Disability, Court Says
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
May 1996
Quick Summary: A home health aide experienced significant anxiety and an exacerbation of her post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms. Her PTSD had its origin in past sexual victimization.
The home health aide was terminated after extreme difficulty with an assignment working alone in the home of a male patient.
After being terminated, the aide filed for Social Security disability benefits for total and complete disability from gainful employment as a result of her PTSD symptoms. The Social Security Administration accepted her claim and awarded her monthly permanent disability benefits.
The aide then sued her former employer for failure to make reasonable accommodation to her disabling PTSD condition. Since she was completely disabled from employment, due to this condition which did not arise from her employment, she was not a disabled individual otherwise qualified for employment, and thus was not entitled to reasonable accommodation.
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT,NEW HAMPSHIRE, 1995.A home health aide filed suit against her former employer under a Federal law which prohibits employers from discriminating against otherwise qualified disabled individuals who, with or without reasonable accommodation, are able to perform the essential functions of the position in question without endangering their own health and safety or the health and safety of others.
The suit was filed under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, a Federal law which predated the Americans With Disabilities Act which has been in effect since 1990. The legal provisions of the two laws are essentially the same, except that the Americans With Disabilities Act significantly enlarged the number of employers subject to Federal disability anti-discrimination laws.
The U.S. District Court in New Hampshire, in explaining its decision, centered its attention on the claim the home health aide in question made to the Social Security Administration in her application for permanent disability benefits. She claimed to be suffering from overwhelming symptoms of anxiety related to past sexual victimization which totally and completely disabled from her from gainful employment. The court noted that her claim was accepted by the Social Security disability examiners as genuine.
A person totally disabled from employment cannot claim entitlement from an employer to reasonable accommodation to a totally disabling condition, according to the court.
The court did not rule whether a caregiver who has anxiety symptoms only when caring for male patients might be entitled to care only for females, as a reasonable accommodation. However, the court seemed to imply that it would not support that conclusion.
Simo vs. Home Care, 906 F. Supp. 714 (D.N.H., 1995).More references from nursinglaw.com
http://www.nursinglaw.com/disability-discrimination-PTSD.htm
http://www.nursinglaw.com/PTSD-disability-discrimination.htm
http://www.nursinglaw.com/PTSD-discrimination.htm