Only When she Breathed: Sanitizer Allergy Disqualifies Worker from Hospital Job

Troy MI (WorkersCompensation.com). Employers defending themselves against a failure-to-accommodate claim should always look over a worker’s prior social security disability application. As illustrated in Snow v. Beaumont Troy Hospital, No. 19-cv-13004 (E.D. Mich. 09/15/22), an employee’s SSA filing can often help establish whether she was a “qualified individual with a disability” under the ADA.

In Snow, the telemetry monitor technician’s social security disability claim helped upend the allegation that the hospital where she worked denied her reasonable accommodations.

The technician developed a severe allergy to foam hand-sanitizer -- a common disinfectant in hospitals and medical offices. Her symptoms, such as difficulty breathing and swallowing, could be life threatening, and became more severe and frequent with each exposure. Her doctor recommended that the technician stay away from hand sanitizer as much as possible.

After the technician returned from medical leave, the hospital removed the sanitizer from her office. But her symptoms continued to worsen, causing her to require breathing treatments, inhalers, and steroids.

In 2018, the hospital terminated the technician. She sued, alleging the hospital violated the ADA by failing to accommodate her allergy.

The court noted that the ADA requires an employer to make reasonable accommodations for the known physical or mental limitations of an otherwise qualified individual with a disability who is an employee. Further, a "qualified individual" is a person who, with or without reasonable accommodation, can perform the essential functions of her job.

Here, there were some key indicators that the technician, at the time she was terminated, could no longer perform her essential functions.

• First, the court pointed out that the technician applied for social security disability benefits because she could no longer work in any medical field "without being exposed to hand sanitizer."
• Second, the court noted that the technician acknowledged her own belief that no medical office would be able to accommodate her severe allergies to hand sanitizer.
• Third, the court observed, the Social Security Administration concurred in the technician’s assessment that she could not work in a medical office. “[I]t determined that [the technician] became disabled, i.e., that she was ‘unable to do [her] previous work,’ on December 1, 2018 — over two weeks before [the hospital] discharged her,” the court wrote.

The court acknowledged that receiving social security benefits does not automatically show that an individual is completely incapable of working. However, an employee asserting a failure-to-accommodate claim must adequately explain the discrepancy between an ADA claim (which alleges that she could have performed her job with or without a reasonable accommodation) and an earlier claim for social security disability benefits (which asserted that she was unable to perform her "previous work" altogether).

“Because [the technician] makes no effort to reconcile the facial disparity between these two claims, she cannot possibly demonstrate that she could perform the essential functions of her job, with or without a reasonable accommodation,” the court wrote.

The court thus granted the employer summary judgment.

Forms, email updates, legal, regulatory, and compliance information from Michigan and 52 other jurisdictions across the U.S. can be found on WorkCompResearch.com.

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