Accommodating a Mental Disability

May 10th, 2006 by

Let’s say you run a large insurance company. You sell through your own agents, one of whom has been a marginal performer for many years. You place the employee on probation several times, but he seems to be trying hard, so you continue his employment. This individual suffers from bi-polar disorder. Over the course of a decade, he goes out on FMLA leave a couple of times for treatment of his mental illness. When his doctors release him for full duty with no restrictions, he returns to work, but the poor performance continues. Finally, you give up. In accordance with company policy, you ask him to pack up his personal belongings and you escort him to the door.
He sues. You lose.
An article in the Boston Globe by Diane Lewis provides the details. A federal jury has awarded $1.3 million to a veteran insurance agent with bipolar disorder who alleged he was fired as a result of his disability.
The 11-member jury awarded Kevin W. Tobin, 60, $500,000 in emotional distress damages, $439,315 in lost wages, and $416,664 in lost pension and retirement benefits caused by his termination by Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. in January 2001.
In court papers, the company argued that from 1992 to 2001, Tobin failed to meet minimum standards and was placed on probation several times. The company also claimed that he rarely ”prospected” for new business.
Tobin’s attorney, Frank Frisoli, argued during the trial that the insurance company did not adequately accommodate Tobin’s disability as required by the Americans with Disability Act. During the trial, Frisoli said, Liberty Mutual argued that Tobin did not have a disability even though it had approved two prior disability leaves and created a reentry program to help the insurance agent improve his job performance.
Frisoli maintained yesterday that his client would have been able to perform the essential functions of his job if he had received the same amount of help as others in his office, including a top performer who was given three assistants. By contrast, Frisoli said, his client received sporadic assistance from a service representative who supervised other representatives and was not always available.
”He had difficulty going from task to task,” said Frisoli. ”But he was willing to work long hours and he did it regularly to make up the work.”
A Warning for Employers
It’s premature to draw extensive conclusions from the limited information in this article, but here’s the part that might truly alarm employers: by approving FMLA leave, Liberty appears to have undermined its contention that Tobin did not have a disability. (On the other hand, if they tried to deny his leave to seek treatment, they surely would have violated the ADA.) More important, once an employer approves FMLA leave (for an employee’s physical or mental disability), you may be on the hook for a wide range of “reasonable accommodations,” even if none are requested and even though eligibility for FMLA leave does not necessarily mean that the employee meets the ADA definition.
Liberty had a marginal employee. While they did try to provide some re-entry support to Tobin when he returned from his disability-related leave, they allocated most of their resources where they had the optimum effect on the bottom line: high achievers got extra administrative support. The low achiever, Mr. Tobin, got little help. Tobin’s attorney was apparently able to transform this “business as usual” scenario into a “failure to accommodate.” In other words, because of Mr. Tobin’s disability, Liberty had an obligation to dedicate additional resources to bring him up to minimal standards. Liberty’s lawyers failed to convince the jury that Tobin was simply unable to perform the essential functions of the job.
This case embodies a very tricky human resource issue that could confront almost any employer. From this distance, the jury award appears to blur the line between an employee’s ability to perform the essential functions of the job and the employer’s obligation to accommodate. It remains to be seen whether this is an important precedent, or something that will disappear in the course of Liberty’s appeal. In the meantime, employers might want to begin to make a connection between FMLA leave and the obligation to reasonably accommodate.