Police dispatcher had narcolepsy: Too unsafe to work?
April 9, 2010 by Fred HosierPosted in: disabilities and safety, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Lawsuits, What Would You Do?
PDF A police dispatcher in the Chicago area told her supervisor that she had narcolepsy which causes people to fall asleep unexpectedly. However, medication was keeping the condition under control.
Kenya Madden was hired as a police dispatcher for Hillsboro, IL. During her training period, she told her supervisor she had narcolepsy.
Among the follow-up questions the supervisor didn’t ask Madden:
- What has your experience been with the condition?
- When was the last time you had an episode?
- Does medication control the condition for you?
Madden was fired. She filed a lawsuit under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), alleging discrimination based upon the perception of a disability.
Hillsboro settled the lawsuit out of court, agreeing to pay Madden $10,001. The municipality admits no fault.
Before the settlement, the town’s police chief told the Chicago Tribune that this was a clear public safety issue, and he was unwilling to risk Madden falling asleep during an emergency call. She would have been alone at many times.
Is this a clear-cut case because of the potential risks? Or are there gray areas because Madden’s condition was under control with medication? Let us know what you think in the Comments Box below.
Cite: Madden v. Village of Hillside, (PDF).
SafetyNewsAlert.com delivers the latest Safety news once a week to the inboxes of over 270,000 Safety professionals.
Click here to sign up and start your FREE subscription to SafetyNewsAlert!
Tags: fall asleep, narcolepsy, police dispatcher
Loading ...
April 13th, 2010 at 8:53 am
I think it’s a gray area. Part of me thinks that if her condition was under control (verified by a physician), she should have been given a chance to do the job. However, if I was her supervisor, I would still be hesitant to leave her alone. I would have to observe her at work for a long period of time before I would feel comfortable and confident that she would not fall asleep on the job. Remaining under a doctor’s care for her condition would have to be a condition of her employment.
My mother-in-law has narcolepsy. She does not take medication for it and routinely falls asleep during telephone conversations and even during meals. She gave up her driver’s license long ago after she fell asleep at the wheel.
April 13th, 2010 at 10:22 am
Serioiusly, I don’t see a problem with it. There should be other dispatchers there as back up. The person has the condition controlled through medications and if there hasn’t been any problems yet then why worry.
If the person has episodes on the job then there can be an issue.
April 13th, 2010 at 1:03 pm
Since the employer could not have asked about this condition, but the employee volunteered the information, that makes it even “grey-er”. This really should have been discovered though as part of her pre-employment physical, and the Dr. should have a copy of the job task analysis for the position.
April 14th, 2010 at 7:41 am
I give her credit for trying to work with the condition. Nothing like kicking a person when they are actually trying to do the right thing. Sounds like she got a small settlement. If I was on a jury I think I would have given her more.
April 14th, 2010 at 10:39 am
I personally have narcolepsy and feel very discouraged when people treat this like a condition that makes you a safety risk. Granted left untreated you can be but people are still very ignorant about this condition. I’ve heard my llicense should be taken from me from a college professor to a OB doctor saying “Oh that where you fall asleep eating soup” (from the movie Duece Bigelow). Once controlled with medication episodes are far and few between and last for but a moment, you don’t fall asleep for hours mere seconds before your brains switches back. Please do a little research before jumping to conclusions.
April 15th, 2010 at 1:12 pm
Condition controled by medication. Sometimes, all the time, only after lunch, late in the shift, beginning of the shift, ect, ect.
April 16th, 2010 at 9:52 am
[...] Police dispatcher һаԁ narcolepsy: Tοο unsafe tο work … [...]
April 20th, 2010 at 8:15 am
We also have a dispatcher with a health issue (not narcolepsy) that is controlled by medication. This dispatcher is often alone on the job and the health issue may cause the employee to have episodes of passing out, etc. Not once has he had a problem because he manages his illness. So I can completely understand where the City of Hillsboro is coming from, however, our employee told us up front and of his own accord showed us how he was managing his illness. Only once in all the years he has worked with us has even called off sick due to his illness and I personnally commend him for it, because the symptoms he was experiencing at the time would have put his duties in jeopardy - he had the wisdom to say, “hey, I’m unable to work today.” And we were willing to accomodate him.
April 20th, 2010 at 9:34 am
I personally have an issue with this, because there are certain and again I say, certain jobs that people should be aware of the judgment consequences in regards to their job responsibilities, you wouldn’t want an airline pilot with narcolepsy and you wouldn’t want a police officer with turrets syndrome, you wouldn’t want a paraplegic as a life guard either, I am not trying to make light of this, but the individual reveals this condition after the fact that she was employed, and then from some of the prior comments this agency now has to be responsible and even have a hardship of babysitting this individual to make sure that they are not going to have an episode, I can understand if this wasn’t under a job that did not have the urgency of making and/or handling life and death and medical and/or property emergencies. What’s even more scary is the fact that people are not making sound decisions in regards to what they are doing and what kind of decisions they are personally making – this is like putting a supposed rehabilitated child molester in charge of a kindergarten. Let’s say something does happen, because this person forgot to take their med’s and by luck of the draw a call comes in – missed – the dispatcher get’s hell for it – then the people that suffered the emergency want some one to be responsible for their loss – so they sue, now the employee say’s; hey it’s not me, you know I have this condition and they (meaning my employer) knew I had this condition so you can’t make me responsible for what ever, they turn around and sue the employer, then I read some one else saying that the judgment payment wasn’t high enough. I have certain physical limitations, and again they are limitations, are they a disability, well it all depends to what I do, I don’t care for heights, but I didn’t apply at the telephone company to work on towers, again all this is just my opinion.
April 20th, 2010 at 10:10 am
I also have a sleep disorder - sleep apnea. In order to get a DOT medical card, I had to have a wakefulness study to show my treatments were working. The problem (if we are gettignthe whole story) is that the employer did not appear to want to make any kind of reasonable accomodation for the employee. I have no doubt that a similar study could be performed to verify the effectiveness of the employee’s treatment. The employer just decided to jump to a conclusion, say “this is dangerous” rather than think through the situation. I think the Hillsboro PD made a poor decision.
April 20th, 2010 at 2:17 pm
I agree with Michael. Employers need to have some basic guidelines however each case needs to be assessed individually and fully explored. I think they jumped the gun so to speak. An assumption was made that this employee was dangerous based soley on a medical diagnosis, which is discriminatory.
April 23rd, 2010 at 8:47 am
I do feel for Kenya’s situation. She didn’t ask for narcolepsy, but I look at it from a different point of view. One The position she was hired to fill can and often does deal with life and death situations. The question I ask is why did she make it all the way to training without anyone knowing she has narcolepsy? The questions ask at the pre-employment physical should have been a good time for Kenya to disclose the information. This leads me to think that dishonesty comes into play. I support the dismissal. Honesty IS the best policy. If she is dishonest there can she be trusted in outer area?
September 13th, 2010 at 12:20 pm
Just because you have narcolepsy does not mean it is uncontrollable.
A good friend of mine suffers from the sleep disorder. While she spends most of her day very tired, she does not fall asleep randomly. She has more control of it, and is not as afflicted by it as some. She also does take medicine. But let me make it clear that even without her medicine, she does not fall asleep randomly, at the wheel, or even during meetings/classes.
The employer was definitely incorrect in making an assumption about Kenya. Just because you enjoy a cocktail doesn’t mean you are going to drink on the job. This is ridiculous.
November 3rd, 2010 at 2:55 pm
Definite gray area. 1-there is a spectrum of presentation, meaning that she may have narcolepsy w/o cataplexy which is well (100%) controlled by medications during certain times of the day. 2-reasonable accommodation could be something as simple as limiting working hours to daytime shifts and 40 hours a week. Otherwise, if the job has a yearly performance appraisal dependent (in part) upon the “number of extra shifts volunteered for” and it is zero, the person gets penalized for making the responsible decision not to risk exacerbating his/her condition.
I live in a state where disclosure of narcolepsy = initial denial of a driver’s license. The funny thing is that the only time I’ve had trouble driving was before I knew what the problem was. If I lived in my current state at the time of my diagnosis that may have affected my decision to seek treatment. If diagnosis becomes synonymous with the loss of one’s independence (driving, a career) then I expect an even larger population of narcoleptics will go undiagnosed. I believe the current statistics estimate that 3 out of 4 narcoleptics or 75% of people with narcolepsy in the US remain undiagnosed….that is where we should be focusing our attention.