Think Public Safety Trumps Employment Law?

Think public safety trumps employment law? Maybe… or not.

This fall, a young, female college student was murdered two blocks from my home. The victim was shot eleven times and the perpetrator was allegedly both her former lover and the professor for one of her classes. He later took his own life in a local hotel.

Since then, as one can imagine, there's been extraordinary press coverage and rampant speculation. The university where he was employed (not Washington State University where I'm employed) has faced incredible scrutiny about what they knew and when they knew it to cast into question as to whether they could have prevented it. I do not know all the facts and frankly, I think few do.

The killer is alleged to have been bipolar and suffering from multiple personalities. He is alleged to have revealed this to his employer. There are also said to have been complaints by students and the victim to the university but not local law enforcement.

Now, some journalists have reached out to academic experts elsewhere and asked their opinion. Basically with no more information than what you now have, the experts are waxing learnedly about woulda’, coulda’ and shoulda’. One went so far as to say, “Public safety always trumps employment law.”

That’s not exactly true when it comes to people’s medical conditions and employment law, or when a person reports a personal problem to administration but insists administrators not contact law enforcement in the absence of any imminent threat to oneself or others. The reason is, what one feels is a safety issue may not be a true public safety issue. A person can reveal their medical condition to their employer, for example, but the employer does not have an undeniable right at that point to communicate this information to the person’s co-workers simply because the information is “out there now.” There are VERY important limitations reaching far beyond this short blog.

An employee with a medical condition requiring medication is not required to be a compliant patient in order to remain employed. If their condition deteriorates and their specific job functions can’t be done or they cannot attend work, then some actions can be taken. But there are also responsibilities for accommodation as well. If they stop taking their medication but can still perform their duties, regardless of how poorly they may feel, they may be able to remain employed.

AND…although these examples are not complete or exact, the law is.

So here’s a good primer on how the federal government looks at one disease as a possible disability, and more importantly, what they don’t allow an employer to do:

www.eeoc.gov/facts/epilepsy.html.
 

My advice is that the answers to these types of issues are very complex, and fraught with pitfalls. Consult counsel and your insurer before you decide this is “simple.”