A Lesson on the Importance of Uniformity in Performance Standards

 

What happens, however, when an employer holds a disabled employee to a higher performance standard than non-disabled counterparts? Consider Wolffram v. Sysco Cincinnati (S.D. Ohio 5/19/15).

 

The plaintiff in Wolffram was a diabetic, and, as a result, needed extra time for bathroom breaks during the work day. Those bathroom breaks caused Wolffram’s performance to suffer on Sysco’s electronic performance monitoring system. Because Wolffram consistently fell below the minimum performance requirements, Sysco ultimately terminated him. Nevertheless, he defeated Sysco’s summary judgment motion on his disability discrimination claim. How? Because he claimed that other non-disabled employees were given more slack on the performance standards, that other employees “cheated” the system but were not disciplined or terminated.

 

Employers, it’s OK to have performance standards. It’s even OK to require that each of your employees, disabled and non-disabled, meet those standards. When you start letting those standards slip, however, you become exposed to claims from disabled employees who cannot otherwise meet the requirements because of their disability. Yet another example of how the EEO laws require uniformity of application in your workplace.