Yes, ADA May Cover Domestic Violence, Assault, and Stalking

What are some examples of employment decisions that may violate the Americans with Disabilities Act and involve applicants or employees who experience domestic or dating violence, sexual assault or stalking?

The ADA prohibits different treatment or harassment at work based on an actual or perceived impairment, which could include impairments resulting from domestic or dating violence, sexual assault or stalking. For example:

• An employer searches an applicant’s name online and learns that she was a complaining witness in a rape prosecution and received counseling for depression. The employer decides not to hire her based on a concern that she may require future time off for continuing symptoms or further treatment of depression.
• An employee has facial scarring from skin grafts, which were necessary after she was badly burned in an attack by a former domestic partner. When she returns to work after a lengthy hospitalization, co-workers subject her to frequent abusive comments about the skin graft scars, and her manager fails to take any action to stop the harassment.

The ADA may require employers to provide reasonable accommodation requested for an actual disability or a “record of” a disability. An actual disability is a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities (which include major bodily functions). A “record of” a disability is a past history of a substantially limiting impairment. An impairment does not need to result in a high degree of functional limitation in order to be “substantially limiting.” Examples of situations in which reasonable accommodation should have been considered:

• An employee who has no accrued sick leave and whose employer is not covered by the FMLA requests a schedule change or unpaid leave to get treatment for depression and anxiety following a sexual assault by an intruder in her home. The employer denies the request because it “applies leave and attendance policies the same way to all employees.”
• In the aftermath of stalking by an ex-boyfriend who works in the same building, an employee develops major depression that her doctor states is exacerbated by continuing to work in the same location as the ex-boyfriend. As a reasonable accommodation for her disability, the employee requests reassignment to an available vacant position for which she is qualified at a different location operated by the employer. The employer denies the request, citing its “no transfer” policy.

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The ADA prohibits disclosure of confidential medical information. An example of a potential violation would be an employee who is being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) resulting from incest who requests reasonable accommodation. Her supervisor then tells the employee’s co-workers about her medical condition.

The ADA also prohibits retaliation or interference with an employee’s exercise of his or her rights under the statute. For instance, in the prior example, the employee tells the supervisor she intends to complain to HR about his unlawful disclosure of confidential medical information. The supervisor warns that if she complains, he will deny her the pay raise she is due to receive later that year.

EEO charges related to violence and stalking—just one more daily challenge. In HR, if it’s not one thing, it’s another. Like FMLA intermittent leave, overtime hassles, ADA accommodation, and then on top of that whatever the agencies and courts throw in your way.

You need a go-to resource, and our editors recommend the “everything-HR-in-one website,” HR.BLR.com. As an example of what you will find, here are some policy recommendations concerning e-mail, excerpted from a sample policy on the website:

Privacy. The director of information services can override any individual password and thus has access to all e-mail messages in order to ensure compliance with company policy. This means that employees do not have an expectation of privacy in their company e-mail or any other information stored or accessed on company computers.

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E-mail review. All e-mail is subject to review by management. Your use of the e-mail system grants consent to the review of any of the messages to or from you in the system in printed form or in any other medium.

Solicitation. In line with our general non-solicitation policy, e-mail must not be used to solicit for outside business ventures, personal parties, social meetings, charities, membership in any organization, political causes, religious causes, or other matters not connected to the company’s business.

We should point out that this is just one of hundreds of sample policies on the site. (You’ll also find analysis of laws and issues, job descriptions, and complete training materials for hundreds of HR topics.)

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