A recent court case highlights one of the lesser-known prongs of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Here’s what happened:
A woman applied for a job with the State Department and was tentatively offered a job, pending a successful medical examination.
The problem: She was a cancer survivor, and despite repeated statements from her doctor that she was perfectly fit for the job with no limitations at all, the agency decided to take back the offer.
She sued under the Rehabilitation Act (the ADA equivalent for government workers). The agency’s defense: The woman wasn’t disabled. As her doctor said, the cancer was in full remission and no longer affected her life or ability to work. In her own words, she was “fit as a fiddle.”
But she won the case anyway. Why? The court ruled she’d been discriminated against because she had a “record of” a disability — in other words, the only reason the company refused to hire her was because she used to be disabled.
It’s an ADA provision that doesn’t appear in a lot of cases. But as this ruling shows, it’s one companies still need to watch out for.
Cite: Adams v. Rice
