workplace ? ms didability

[liza]

Even if you can fly an airline plane, if you have ms and are symptom free
you cannot be an airline pilot, as the airlines and other similar employers
with critical safety standards treat ms, which is incurable and
unpredictable, as a disability and liability in itself.

Unlike the airlines and pilots or similar professions with similar
standards, some employers with discretion, depending on the type of work
involved, can hire or keep someone with ms with or without disabling
symptoms if they can do the work, and if existing symptoms if any, are at
the time irrelevant to the work. In other words they do not always have to
be free of ms or any or all of it's disabling symptoms..

However with the above in mind the following did and could happen. An
employee's ms created new disabling symptoms that caused errors that were
harmful and a liability. Rather than dismiss the employee, accommodation
was given. Furthermore, later the employee still ill with ms, ( as ms is
incurable ), was declared medically as, now fit to do any type of work
that the employee was able to do.

After being declared fit etc, poor performance and errors were again
discovered that once were accommodated for because of being caused by
known disabling residual ms symptoms warned about. . However since the
employee had been declared fit etc, the employer did not accommodate the
employee as before, but instead made the employee liable with massive
financial disciplines and a dismissal without severance or a disability
plan, as punishment when the disciplines to correct cited ms cognitive and
physical symptoms did not work. No criminal act was ever committed or
charged.

MS is of course unpredictable and incurable , can vary from person to
person and time to time as to disabling symptoms, old or new, that can come
and go without warning and cause harm.

The questions I have with all the above in mind are as follows.

Is ms recognized in law or treated everywhere in the workplace as a
disability in itself ? Is it covered in labor law as a disability not
subject to discipline for poor performance? If not should it be? Should
employers treat it the same way?

Does anyone know if there is jurisprudence in case law, or precedent that
treats ms as a disability in itself and perhaps also not subject to
discipline for poor performance.?

Does any one know of bad treatment of ms sufferers in the workplace?

I hope to hear from somebody regards mke ***@globetrotter.net
and Lisa at ***@globetrotter.net

[liza]

Hi. Thanks for your input. Sorry I was not specific enough. The employee
was certified by a medical expert a neurologist as suffering with ms and the
employer was told.
The employer determined the employee was fit, but acknowledged, not free or
cured of ms, and disregarded any further medical exams and advice and
symptoms all with warning to beware of problem residual ms symptoms as they
are unpredictable. The problem with unpredictable ms is it's symptoms,
that can come and go without warning or knowledge with short circuits in the
brain causing cognitive or physical problems. (Ref MS society.)

How can one determined that before during or after the fact in all cases of
ms if it was or was not the ms.? That is why I ask if ms is considered a
disability in itself ? This would at least give protection from summary
liability or other abuse and expensive litigation, especially If it is
incorporated in employment law.
I know that some of us have to work and like to work but at what price,
which of course could compromised safety with liability in all fields of
work, and not only the airlines.

The main gist of my posting is to see if someone knows the disability in
itself factor.

I guess I should have skipped the example and just asked the question Is ms
in itself considered in law and employment as a disability in itself.? When
or when not symptom free? Thanks for your input.

Post by liza
However with the above in mind the following did and could happen. An
employee's ms created new disabling symptoms that caused errors that were
harmful and a liability. Rather than dismiss the employee, accommodation
was given. Furthermore, later the employee still ill with ms, ( as ms is
incurable ), was declared medically as, now fit to do any type of work
that the employee was able to do.

This paragraph has contractions in it that void each other out. Exactly

who

determined that the employee was fit for "all type of work"? That sort of
verbiage is usually reserved for SSDI type rulings and would never be
independently "determined" by an employer, especially if the company was

trying

to be ADA compliant (you infer that the employer is\was aware of the

employee's

medical condition and had made previous accommodations, ADA world).
Do employers fire people for nonperformance due to a disability - sure,

all the

time. However, due to the terms used in this post I am not sure whether

we are

talking ADA or SSDI stuff.
I was pretty much forced out of my job of 25 years, but of course I went

on

long term disability and from there onto SSDI, which I dare say is SOP.
Matthew Mark Drew
http://members.aol.com/matthew561/
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential
is invisible to the eye. --Antoine de Saint Exupéry