Legal Question in Employment Law in Washington
Am I a considered a disabled worker?
I have been employed at the same company close to 15 years come Sep 2008. Since my employment, I have undergone 1 C-spine diskectomy and 3 bouts of Bell's Palsy. I just had another bout (4th of Bell's Palsy) last week, and it appears that the Bell's Palsy sets in due to stress from the job. My employer has accommodated to telecommute on some days initially, but I had be in a different position now because our client required 3 days of reporting to their office, instead of 2 which I have requested. I used to be able to do 3x per week, but could no longer do it. When I requested for 2 days a week, my employer chose to provide the position to another employee. I was then requested to function at another position with full time telecommute and a paycut of 23.5% In my new position, the physical stress of commuting has been eliminated (by 1-hour ferry each way, plus commute to home and ferry station), but the mental stress of production in the new position (which caused my recent Bell's Palsy 4th time) continues to affect me. This has impacted my production and am currently being monitored for my production standards.
Do I have protection under ADA? What should I do to be protected?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Am I a considered a disabled worker?
I would need to know more about your disabilities, specifically what activities in life does it interfere with besides your ability to work at your present job, but from what you write, your disabilities probably do NOT bring you within the protection of the ADA. However, the comparable state law, the WLAD, has a definition of disability that in most cases is more favorable to the employee, and it is very possible that you DO come under the protection of that law.
It sounds as though your employer is trying to provide reasonable accomodation. Whether that's so in your case depends on what resources your employer has, what sort of job options it has available to offer you, how large the company is, and many other factors. The employer is required to make reasonable accomodation, but it does not necessarily have to provide the particular accomodation that you request.
You may want to check with an employment law attorney in your area to see if you are providing your employer all of the proper notices, if your employer is doing all that it can to accomodate you, and if there is a reasonable option that you might want to request. Good luck!
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