We have been following the sad saga of Joseph Casias, a former Walmart employee in Battle Creek, Michigan. Casias, 29, suffers from a sinus cancer and an inoperable brain tumor. (He looks so much older than his years.) After 5 unusually successful years as a Walmart employee, he injured his knee on the job, after which he underwent a mandatory drug test. Casias has a prescription for medical marijuana (legal in Michigan). Inevitably, he failed the drug test. Walmart fired him.
He sued for wrongful termination in federal court. He lost.
Judge Robert Jonker found that while Casias’s use of marijuana was legal, Walmart was within its rights to terminate him. Nothing in the Michigan statute legalizing pot regulates private employment. As we pointed out in a recent blog, the issue of legal drugs in the workplace is a gray zone of formidable dimensions. Employers will usually err on the side of caution, as the exposures for negligent retention appear to outweigh the pressure to accommodate disabled employees. Hence, Walmart wins.
What is lost in the standard personnel procedures that identified Casias as a (legal) drug user and terminated his employment is a simple fact that may or may not concern Walmart. Casias was a highly motivated and valued employee. His work was exemplary. Workers like Casias are not easy to find, especially when the pay is marginal. It’s worth a little extra effort to hold on to them. By following their own rules to the letter, Walmart wins in court but loses on the selling floor.
Legally Disemployed
Even though states are showing some flexibility in their approaches to marijuana, legalization is no help to workers who have a prescription for the drug. These folks will routinely fail post-accident drug tests. As a result, any injury to a worker using medical marijuana will result in a termination. Zero tolerance, zero employment.
We are not suggesting that states attempt to preempt the rights of employers in statutes that legalize marijuana. With so much at stake, with so many complex risk factors at play, employers must have the final say in who works and who is let go. We can only hope that employers use their powers – dare I say it? – compassionately.
Did Walmart have an alternative? With his serious illness, Joseph Casias appears to meet the ADA’s definition of disabled. Walmart could have approached the dilemma through the ADA accommodation process. After Casias failed the drug test, they could have determined: first, that the drug was prescribed; second, that the drug use was not a factor in his injury; and third, that there have been no indications that his drug use has impacted his performance on the job. Having passed this three-pronged test, Walmart could have decided to “accommodate” Casias’s disability by waiving the drug test results and retaining him as an employee.
Alas, in the world of huge corporations, the fate of one man just isn’t worth that much effort. Why bother being flexible when it’s so much easier – and perfectly legal – to show employees the door?
You know the Walmart motto: Save money. Live better. Nothing in there about doing the right thing for the likes of Joe Casias.
Posts Tagged ‘Walmart’
Medical Marijuana: Walmart Wins! (Walmart Loses)
Monday, February 28th, 2011Health Wonk Review, Valentine’s week edition, and other news of note
Thursday, February 17th, 2011When is healthcare like a box of chocolates? Find out over at Colorado Long Term Care Insider, where Louise & Jay Norris host an excellent Valentine’s Week Edition of Health Wonk Review.
Other news of note:
Tasers & cop claims – Roberto Ceniceros of Comp Time has an interesting post on how taser use by police is reducing injury rates and comp claims because it provides a low-impact way to subdue suspects. But tasers are also used on cops-in-training, sometimes resulting in serious injuries.
The straight dope – Joe Paduda has a do-not-miss post on narcotic opioids in workers comp and Cephalon’s role, in which he discusses how drugs like Fentora & Actiq, which are FDA approved only for cancer patients, are being promoted to workers comp patients. (One court ruling stated, “data suggested that more than 80% of patients using Actiq did not have cancer,” and “oncologists accounted for only 1% of Actiq prescriptions filled at retail pharmacies in the U.S.”) Cost is a huge issue, but Joe points out that it is not all about the money: Actiq has been linked to dozens of deaths from overdose.
Medical marijuana – Last week, Michigan court rulings dealt a double blow to medical marijuana. One of the Michigan rulings upheld the firing of a Walmart employee who had been proscribed the drug to control symptoms of his brain cancer, a case we posted about last year: Walmart: Shopping for Souls in Aisle Three. (Also see our recent post: Medical Marijuana in the Workplace: Dude, Lock Me Out!.)
Insurer market share – Cyril Tuohy of Risk & Insurance offers a short journey through the latest insurance industry statistics, including some great stats about market share: This Just in: Known and Lesser Known Facts About the Industry
Not something you see every day – CompNewsNetwork informs us that the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation has recently snagged a record $830,000 in restitution from a prior fraud conviction. The case was truly egregious – an anesthesiologist who bilked the system for $60 million in fraudulent claims – while contributing to at least two deaths in the process. Dr. Jorge Martinez was sentenced to life in prison for “the first known conviction involving a criminal charge of health care fraud resulting in death after the overdose of two patients seeking treatment for work related injuries.”
Illegal immigrant update – Peter Rousmaniere’s Working Immigrants blog is your in-the-know source for tracking the latest issues and stats on the topic. Via the Pew Hispanic Center, he informs us that the 2010 illegal population in 2010 remains about the same as in 2009: about 11.2 million, of which 8 million are in the workforce, and 58% of which are Mexicans. See more detail: Estimate of illegal immigrant population in 2010.
Good WC bookmark – We are adding WorkCompWire as a bookmark in our sidebar and you should keep it handy too. It’s a good source of news and opinion – check it out!
Savings on complex care – Yvonne Guilbert points out that overlooking simple facts can add significant costs to a claim very quickly. She asks carriers what they are missing on complex claims that might be costing them money.
Market pulse – At PropertyCasualty360, Caroline McDonald talks about why buyers shouldn’t get too comfortable with low workers comp rates. One of the primary sources for the article is our friend Mark Walls of Safety National – who is also well know as the founder of LinkedIn’s Work Comp Analysis Group.
Diversity – Jared wade posts that 18 insurance firms are among the best companies for LGBT employees to work for – “scoring a perfect 100% as a Best Place to Work for their ‘support equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees,’ according to HRC.”
Distracted driving in NY – A sign of things to come? In New York, drivers will get two points for talking on hand-held cell phones. A two-point penalty has already been in place for texting while driving. At that rate, auto insurance sure could get expensive quickly for compulsive phone-o-philes.
Mental health – CCOHS, the Canadian counterpart of OSHA, makes the case for why employers should care about mental health at work.
Attention Shoppers: Walmart is Expanding Health Care options for Workers
Monday, October 24th, 2005The Insider has tracked the impact of Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer, with considerable interest. We have no idea what happens to employees who file workers compensation claims, but we would guess that the company is ferociously aggressive in applying claims management/denial techniques. As with many employers, the company’s workers comp problems are compounded by the fact that more than half of their employees lack health insurance. That is about to change.
The Good News
We read in today’s New York Times (registration required) that Walmart is significantly expanding the health insurance options for its workers. The good news concerning the company’s new health insurance plan is its cost. This is a relatively inexpensive plan — as low as $11 month for individual coverage, $37 for a single parent and $67 for families. Individuals could visit a doctor three times before paying a deductible, an arrangement aimed at encouraging workers to seek preventive care. In the past, workers have had to pay a deductible before their insurance kicked in.
The Squeeze
That’s the good news. This being Walmart, we better look at the details. When Walmart says that monthly premiums would cost between 40 percent and 60 percent less than those for any existing Wal-Mart insurance policy, we need to find out why. The plan carries a $1000 deductible — a big number for most people and one which represents over 5% of the annual income for many Walmart workers. In the first year, total payments under the plan are capped at $25,000, so workers had best plan their catastrophic illnesses only after they are beyond their one year anniversary. In addition, out-of-pocket payments range from $300 for prescriptions to $1,000 for hospital stays.
As with many types of insurance, this plan works best for people who don’t need it. It’s a good fit for workers who are young and healthy, as opposed to those who are older and more vulnerable to illness. It’s one thing to have an annual check up with no follow up visits. It’s quite another for an older Wal-Mart employee, who might visit a doctor three times in a one month and then need to pay $1,000 before the company would share the cost of care. The last time I wandered through a Walmart, I saw more people likely to run up against the deductible than those who would not.
Bottom Lines and Health Care
Perhaps Walmart has taken the recent spate of bad publicity to heart. Sure, their prices are low, but consumers may have begun to balk when a company hires illegal immigrants to clean their facilities and then locks them in to prevent theft, or when many company employees end up on public assistance because they lack health insurance.
The Walmart model will be closely watched from all sides. Wall Street and Wal-Mart investors will scrutinize the bottom line, tracking the impact of the new benefits on Walmart’s profitability. There are a number of analysts hoping that the Walmart plan will prove a useful model to others in controlling spiralling health costs. On the other hand, consumer and worker advocates will focus on the impact of the premiums and the deductibles on the quality of health care available to workers. We are a long way from resolving this problem, but it is encouraging to see Walmart step into the health care arena. Whether it’s a step in the right direction remains to be seen.
Walmart locks night shift workers in
Sunday, January 18th, 2004The New York Times today features a shocking story on night shift employees who are locked in at Walmart and its affiliated stores. (free registration required) In a work practice that seems like something out of a Dickens novel or a third world sweatshop, exits are locked at night under the guise of protecting workers. The article relates the story of one employee, Michael Rodriguez of Corpus Christi, TX, who waited hours to get help for a crushed ankle because all exits but the fire exit were locked, and there was no manager with a key. He had been led to believe that he and his supervisor would both be fired if he used the fire exit.
“The reason for Mr. Rodriguez’s delayed trip to the hospital was a little-known Wal-Mart policy: the lock-in. For more than 15 years, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, has locked in overnight employees at some of its Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores. It is a policy that many employees say has created disconcerting situations, such as when a worker in Indiana suffered a heart attack, when hurricanes hit in Florida and when workers’ wives have gone into labor.”
Company spokespeople maintain the practice is to protect workers who work in high crime areas, but employees and other industry insiders say the practice is primarily to curtail “shrinkage” or theft.
It’s boggling to know that such draconian work environments still exist in this country. A little over 12 years ago, 25 workers lost their lives while trying to kick down doors in a fiery inferno in a chicken processing plant in North Carolina. Yet the practice still persists, although one might think these would be isolated incidents rather than accepted policy in the world’s most prominent retailer.
There is no more fundamental mandate than worker safety. Not only is protecting workers the right thing to do, it’s usually the cheapest thing to do in terms of risk management.