While You Were Sleeping

But the courts will be scrutinizing your claim with a far more critical eye.

Post Sutton (May 29, 2001)

Prior to Sutton, courts considered a mental illness such as depression a sufficient reason to bring a legal action because, in the words of one judge, "depression is a misleadingly mild term for an extraordinarily debilitating illness." But as John Petrila JD, LLM. and Thomas Brink JD explain in the May 2001 Psychiatric Services, Sutton and the cases that followed changed all that:

In a case involving a depressed police officer who had been taking Prozac, a federal court of appeals denied his claim, ruling that the Prozac controlled his symptoms so he was able to perform his duties adequately. In another case, the court rejected the plaintiff's claim that her depression "substantially limited" her major life activities, and in yet another case the court found that the employee's stress at work resulted from personal conflicts with her supervisor rather than her depression.

Nevertheless, a court will lend a sympathetic ear provided certain conditions are met. In one case, a school secretary was fired soon after bipolar manifested itself. She brought an ADA claim, arguing the school had not responded to her requests for reasonable accommodation. A federal court of appeals ruled in her favor, finding her bipolar substantially limited the life activity of thinking. The court took note of the chronic nature of her illness, as well as the disabling nature of the side effects of her lithium.

The authors draw several conclusions from Sutton and its progeny. First, the employee bears the burden of showing that a disability exists even after corrective measures have been adopted. Second, the increased burden for disclosure may compel the employee to reveal information he or she would rather keep private. Third, an individual cannot claim the protection of the ADA by forgoing corrective treatment such as not taking meds (which may put a future court in the position of ruling a plaintiff must take his meds to pursue an ADA claim). Fourth, the terms "substantially limits" and "major life activity" are still open to interpretation.

The authors conclude: "It can no longer be assumed that even the most serious mental illness will be presumed to be a disability under the ADA. Instead, the individual must demonstrate specifically how the illness in its corrected state substantially limits major life activities."

Go To Page: 1 2 3 4