An industrial painting company in Beaumont, Texas, has settled a federal lawsuit that alleged it unlawfully fired a worker because of his medically prescribed methadone.
Steel Painters LLC, an industrial sandblasting and painting services company, has agreed to pay monetary damages and furnish other relief to settle a disability discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, Steel Painters violated federal law when it fired an employee based on his record of disability — past opioid drug addiction — and the perception that he continued to have such a disability due to his use of medically prescribed methadone.
The employee disclosed his methadone prescription to the facility that conducted his pre-employment drug test and to Steel Painters at hire. The testing facility verified the methadone use was legally prescribed by a medically supervised drug rehabilitation clinic.
However, when Steel Painters learned the employee tested positive for methadone on his drug screen, it instructed the employee to have his prescribing physician complete a company-issued verification form.
The EEOC said that when the employee informed Steel Painters’ administrative manager that he was unable to comply because of the clinic’s patient confidentiality rules, she unlawfully fired him. The employee requested that the manager allow him to confirm the safety of his methadone use by calling his rehabilitation clinic directly or by having a company doctor evaluate him.
The EEOC charged that Steel Painters’ insistence that the medication’s safety could only be verified by the prescribing physician filling out the company form was a pretext to hide the company’s discriminatory bias towards people using methadone.
Such alleged conduct violates Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The EEOC filed its suit (Civil Action No. 1:18-cv-00303) in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its conciliation process.
The EEOC and Steel Painters agreed to voluntarily settle the case by consent decree before trial. The two-year decree provides for compensatory damages to the employee. The decree also requires the company to modify its prescription drug verification policy to provide alternative medical verification procedures. The decree also mandates that Steel Painters develop a policy that prohibits disability discrimination and train its managers on the ADA.
The EEOC did not specify the amount in monetary damages the company would pay.
Source: EEOC
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