Termination due to disability?

[Dave2152]

Pennsylvania: I was working and was terminated due to lateness's though after the fact of presenting medical documentation for sleep apnea. I have had sleep apnea for a number of years but was just recently diagnosed due to prior uninsured status or being able to afford to see a doctor in order to determine if i do/did indeed have it. with sleep apnea basically everyone has is but in a very mild degree. what it is = you stop breathing in your sleep due to a constricted airway and/or your body does not respond as efficiently as it should if/when a person stops breathing in their sleep. in my case i have constricted airway due to enlarged tonsils from when i had tonsillitis number of years ago. with this condition also suffer a bit of sleep deprivation where there are a number of times that i do not generally wake up even though i set 2-4 alarms to wake me. as the weather has changed to being colder i have have had more episodes where i do not wake in a timely manner to be in work on time. thought the wednesday before thanksgiving had sleep study and few weeks after when met with the doctor i was diagnosed with sleep apnea. now i am recently under the impression that due to this diagnosis my employer is/was supposed to "accommodate" my condition or disability to some degree though nothing changed after i had submitted medical documentation showing my diagnosis. i do not fully know for a fact niif this-sleep apnea- would be considered a disability or not but am under the impression that it would fall under the american disabilities act. through my giving verbal notice of possibly having this condition prior to diagnosis and promptly from when i was given this diagnosis should my employer have made some type of accommodation as far asw my lateness's such as a flexible time due In? i was never given any paperwork for "reasonable accommodation" though not sure if that should have been presented to me but would think it should have. on the monday before i was terminated was presented with paperwork stating "that i understood should i have another lateness i was to be terminated" which i, a person from HR and my supervisor signed. was i wrongfly terminated and would it be in my best interest to possibly pursue anything regarding this?

 

[Isis1]

were you fired for being late too many times? or fired for having sleep apnea?

 

[Proserpina]

Did you ASK your employer to specifically accommodate you?

Fwiw, the employer is not required to ignore performance issues (and repeated lateness would be a performance issue).

 

[ecmst12]

It is very unlikely that asking your employer to ignore chronic lateness would be considered a reasonable accomodation.

 

[Dave2152]

Not in regards to chronic lateness, lateness due to condition

No not due to chronic lateness but a number(though occuring maybe once every other week) of extreme lateness's due to not being able with multiple alarms set to wake up due to my sleep apnea. I simply though setting multiple alarms would not wake, didn't hit snooze just would be due in at 8 and would at times wake at anywhere from 10am-12:30pm after alarms had gone off would call and let my supervisor know i had slept through them apologize and rush ready out the door and stay for the 8 hrs i was due in that day.

 

[ShyCat]

No not due to chronic lateness but a number(though occuring maybe once every other week) of extreme lateness's due to not being able with multiple alarms set to wake up due to my sleep apnea.

I would consider "once every other week" as chronic.

 

[cbg]

Even under the ADA, the employer is not obligated to accept behavior that they would not accept in a non-disabled employee.

In addition, they are not obligated to accomodate a condition of which they are not aware or one for which you have not requested an accomodation.

I don't see anywhere in your post where you notified your employer of your condition, provided them with medical verification of it, or requested a reasonable accomodation, Nor does allowing you to come in several hours late on a weekly basis sound very reasonable to me.

So no, I do not believe that you were wrongfully terminated or that you would be successful in pursuing this. You were not termed because you have a disability; you were termed because you were chronically unacceptably late.

 

[Dave2152]

"Even under the ADA, the employer is not obligated to accept behavior that they would not accept in a non-disabled employee.

In addition, they are not obligated to accomodate a condition of which they are not aware or one for which you have not requested an accomodation.

I don't see anywhere in your post where you notified your employer of your condition, provided them with medical verification of it, or requested a reasonable accomodation, Nor does allowing you to come in several hours late on a weekly basis sound very reasonable to me."
The first sentence/line in my original post states that i had submitted medical documentation. i had done that as of 12/14 was term'd the 2nd week of january. amd was asking in regards to the facts surround medical condition not behaviour. It's due to sleep deprivation that due to this condition i would have times where i oversleep, not like a chronic every monday thing or any certain day or set number of days where this occured. It happened at most every other week did not say it happened every other week. An irregular incident that happened a few times but also ended my employment. By what i understand for this since i did submit documentation for this someone had stated that by my doing so i should have been asked by Human Resources if i would need any accomodations for this. Not that i should have had to needed to request it since i made the condition known. I'm just trying to get clarity on this but keep getting "Chronic lateness is not acceptable due to a medical condition" which i totally understand. i'm trying to understand if my job should have done something as i Did submit medical documentation. I'm not sue crazy nor do i realistically care to sue i'm trying to understand better what my employer legally was/should've done if anything once again as i Did submit medical documentation.

 

[Proserpina]

You need to have asked the employer for reasonable accommodation - not wait for them to ask you about it.

The onus is on you, not them, to ask.


And to reiterate what cbg said, the ADA does not require an employer to accept behavior they wouldn't accept from any other employee.

 

[cbg]

So, did the medical documentation say anything about requesting an accomodation? If it did not, IN SO MANY WORDS, then the ADA was not triggered.

Nor does being several hours late several time a month constitute a REASONABLE accomodation.

 

[cyjeff]

I know of no standard that would allow arriving for work 2-4 hours late several times a month to be considered a reasonable accommodation.

Why not just ask for a cot at work... or maybe for your boss to call you?

And yes, I am very familiar with sleep apnea. No, it doesn't give you a pass to sleep like a teen ager.

 

[Dave2152]

Well thanks, was not a multi-monthly occurrence but once maybe twice a month, was not a teenager sleeping all day either lol but thanks for the info. hence i was not hitting the snooze button and ignoring alarms but simply not waking to any of four alarms being set at 4 -5 minute intervals of each other. was trying to understand if employer should have attempted to accommodate me or not due to not physically being able to get up at times. A friend had told me they/employer should have put forth something vs my asking since i had submitted documentation. thanks for showing me which was correct/incorrect so i know for future. thanks for helping me not to decide to jump or act on something based on a friends suggestion and being able to get a legal perspective.

 

[cbg]

Twice a month IS multi-monthly. It's more than once, right? And it's FAR too often to be acceptable.

 

[justalayman]

You just need a better alarm clock

YouTube - Worlds Biggest Alarm Clock