permanent restrictions

mikep

We have an employee who has had a WC claim open for about six months now due to pain in his arms. We have placed him on light duty due to restrictions and had others helping out to get his job done. The doctor just yesterday released him to work with "permanent restrictions".
Because of the restrictions, we cannot keep him in his current position. Are we forced to create a position for him that accomodates those restrictions? We are going to have to hire someone to replace him in his current role.

OhioSmallEmployer

The concerns you are faced with now, since he's now with permanent restrictions is how this is affected by ADA. If ADA applies depends on what his restrictions are and what his position requires or if a position is available that he is capable of doing "with or without reasonable accomidations."

bsa

Was he on FMLA while he was off work? FMLA says that you return the employee to his former job if he can do the essential functions of that job -- he can't, so your off that hook. Work comp will assign him an impairment rating and pay him x$'s based on that rating, but I don't think there are any job guarantees.

Do these permanent restrictions make him disabled as defined by the ADA and the most recent supreme court ruling? ADA says he is disabled if he is limited in major life functions and if he is disabled you must reasonably accomodate. You probably need a legal mind to help you determine if his permanent restrictions limit him enough to be disabled.

System

The first thing is to make sure that he really, really can't do the job anymore. If he can't, then figure out whether he's disabled under the ADA. If so, can you reasonably accommodate?

Another issue is whether Indiana's workers' comp law requires you to accommodate, transfer, etc. I don't think workers' comp laws usually require this, but you should check to be sure. If you're a member of our Indiana Employment Law Center, you can find it in the members area of this website. (If not, look for info on the main page of this site.) Or maybe contact your state workers' comp department.

Here are some good general articles on this topic:
[url]http://www.hrhero.com/topics/ada/practice-ada.shtml[/url]
[url]http://www.hrhero.com/q&a/injured.shtml[/url]
[url]http://www.hrhero.com/headlines/011802/lightduty.shtml[/url]
[url]http://www.hrhero.com/headlines/011102/carpaltunnel.shtml[/url]

James Sokolowski
Senior Editor
M. Lee Smith Publishers

mikep

Thank you all for your replies. Good information!

We are definitely checking into whether or not his "disability" is an ADA issue. We are also considering moving him to a position similar to what he has already been doing for "light duty". The concern now is whether or not we can reduce his pay according to this new job description (and the job is also on a less-desirable shift).

When we find the answers/solution to all this I will update this posting to let you all know how it turned out.