Fitness-for duty evaluations are a practical tool that can be used to either validate, or disprove, an employer’s contention that an employee may lack the physical and/or mental capacity to perform the essential functions of the job. Such an evaluation is of critical important in the public-safety sector, particularly with law enforcement offices, because of their constant engagement with citizens, which is both highly visible and heavily scrutinized. While fitness-for-duty exams are a useful preventative measure that can reduce the employer’s exposure and provide a legitimate basis for removing unsuitable employees from the workforce, the benefits co-exist with risks in light of 42 U.S.C. § § 12101-12213—the Americans with Disabilities Act, as amended (“ADA”).
Under the ADA, an employee can qualify for the statutory protections if the employee is either actually disabled or regarded as disabled. However, the employee must be able to perform the essential functions of his or her job. A failed fitness-for-duty exam strengthens the employer’s posture in litigation because it is evidence that the employee cannot perform the essential job functions. On the other hand, if an employee successfully completes a fitness-for-duty exam and is later subjected to an adverse employment action, the very act of requiring the fitness-for-duty exam may be used as evidence that the employee was regarded as disabled by the employer. As such, even if no actual disability exists, the employee may be able to establish that he or she was veiled by the ADA’s protections, making the employer’s burden at trial more challenging.

This presentation will analyze the interplay between the right of the employer to require fitness-for-duty evaluations and the employer’s obligations under the ADA to refrain from disability discrimination, in the context of litigation.

Speaker: Kelly Madrid, Assistant City Attorney, Fort Worth City Attorney’s Office

2017 Distance Learning