Takeaway: Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidance instructs that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) may protect an employee with alcoholism—one able to perform the essential job functions, with or without an accommodation, who can meet the definition of having an ADA disability. If an employee with alcoholism requests an accommodation, employers must enter into interactive discussions to determine if a reasonable accommodation is available to help the employee without causing the employer undue hardship.
The termination of an employee due to conflicts between court-ordered substance abuse classes and his work schedules did not violate the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled.
The employee worked for a natural gas plant and would drink excessively when off duty, often to the point of passing out. Following his third citation for driving while intoxicated (DWI), he was ordered as part of his probation to attend a three-month substance abuse course that included weekly discussion groups.
The employee met with his supervisor and manager to explain that he was required to attend classes due to his DWI and that he was looking for co-workers who could cover his work hours that conflicted with his class schedule. With his manager’s help, the employee was able to find and arrange substitutes with whom to trade his day shifts but was unable to find replacements during four of the evening classes, which overlapped the first few hours of his night shifts. When nobody was found to help cover those shifts, the employee was fired.
Legal Action
The employee sued the employer for intentional discrimination under the ADA, failure to accommodate and retaliation. The federal district court held that the employee’s alcoholism was not a disability under the ADA and granted summary judgment to the employer on all claims. The employee then appealed to the 5th Circuit.
After review, the 5th Circuit overturned the district court’s finding that the employee’s alcoholism was not a disability under the ADA, noting that the 2008 ADA Amendments Act had lowered the standard for determining whether an impairment substantially limits a major life activity.
The appeals court also held that the employee had provided ample evidence that his alcohol-induced inebriation caused significant impairments. “When he drank, he drank excessively, either to the point of passing out or to where he was too sick to drink any more … [and] during these binges, his major life activities of thinking, concentrating and caring for himself would be substantially impacted,” the appeals court wrote.
Turning to the employee’s claim of intentional discrimination, the 5th Circuit held that the employer had produced a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for terminating the employee: the conflict between his court-ordered substance abuse classes and his night shift work schedule. The employer had even attempted to help coordinate coverage for him, the court noted, and while partially successful, the efforts failed eventually.
The employee attempted to show that the employer’s reason for termination was a pretext for discrimination. However, the court dismissed the claim, finding the arguments were inadequate and did not show that similarly situated employees were treated differently.
Next, the 5th Circuit turned to the employee’s failure-to-accommodate claim. The court found that the employee had not informed the employer that his request for time off was due to a disability. Instead, the employee had referred to his struggles with drinking only when discussing his need to deal with the consequences of his DWI and attend his court-ordered substance abuse practices.
The 5th Circuit explained that under the ADA an employee who needs an accommodation because of a disability has the responsibility of informing the employer. It upheld the lower court’s dismissal of the claim, observing that “failure to request an accommodation, particularly where an employee’s disability is not obvious, will doom a claim.”
Finally, because the court had found that the employee had not requested a reasonable accommodation for his alcoholism, it also denied his retaliation claim. “Here,” the court said, “no reasonable juror could have found that [the employee], by notifying [his employer] that his court-ordered classes would conflict with his shift schedule and informing his supervisors that he was attempting to resolve this conflict by finding coverage, was requesting an accommodation for his disability of alcoholism.”
Mueck v. La Grange Acquisitions LP, 5th Cir., No. 22-50064 (July 21, 2023).
Robert S. Teachout, SHRM-SCP, works in the Washington, D.C., area and is a legal editor for XpertHR, a service helping HR build successful and purposeful workplaces.