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"Business necessity" and uniformity must be the standards by which employers judge the need for disciplinary measures, the EEOC explains. "For example, nothing in the ADA prevents an employer from maintaining a workplace free of violence or threats of violence, or from disciplining an employee who steals or destroys property." Disabled workers, however, cannot be subjected to standards different from those imposed on nondisabled employees. Moreover, the company cannot under the ADA impose conduct standards that are not "job related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity."
The EEOC describes, for example, the case of a warehouse worker with a psychiatric disability whose job is to load boxes for shipment. He has no contact with customers and little with his coworkers. Over several weeks, he looks increasingly disheveled, wears torn clothes, and has become rude or unresponsive when addressed by coworkers. The quality of his work has not declined, however. The employer decides to discipline the worker because he is violating employee handbook standards stating that a neat appearance is required, as is courteous behavior toward coworkers. On learning of the disciplinary action, the employee links his changed appearance and behavior to an exacerbation of his psychiatric disability.
The EEOC would rule the employer's disciplinary action a violation of the ADA, because neither the dress nor conduct standards are related to the particular job held by the disabled employee.
In another example, a librarian often loses her temper, disrupting the library and provoking complaints from patrons. When she learns she is to be suspended for violating conduct rules, she discloses a psychiatric disability and asks for a leave of absence for treatment. The EEOC explains that the suspension is valid under the ADA because she violated a conduct rule that is critical to the library's functioning. Upon her return, however, the employer would have to allow her to take leave for psychiatric treatment, since that request comes under the "reasonable accommodation" standard.
What about an employee who is fired after a verbal altercation ending with threatening his supervisor with physical harm? What if the employee then asks that the firing be put on hold while he receives treatment for a psychiatric disorder he claims caused the abusive behavior? Since this is the first time the worker made an issue of his illness and he clearly violated a conduct standard "consistent with business necessity" that is applied to all workers, the ADA would support the employer's decision to terminate the worker.
(Psychiatric News, June 6, 1997)