Translate

Oliver

Oliver
My therapy dog

Welcome to The MS Chronicles!

Thank you for visiting. This blog was created by me, Cristen Salter, for other MS patients and their families in order to help them and myself cope with and face this disease. All information that are not personal experiences are thoroughly researched and cites are created in link or reference form. If you have a burning desire to ask me a question, please do so at cristen.salter@gmail.com. Enjoy and I hope you glean comfort, education and room for compassion for all those who suffer from this disease.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Your legal rights and MS

The last post has brought me to this subject as it is just as important as the medication you take every day and your overall general health.
Legal rights concern insurance issues, handling debt, disability (SSDI), dealing with taxes, working with doctors and lawyers, medical directives, your rights and responsibilities, family law, job discrimination, property, powers, and personal choice. Whew!
Since the last post was about employment discrimination against me, that is where I will start. By the way, I will not bore you with an entire string of these legal bloggings; I will throw them in as needed when I deal with them in my life. Since I am also a paralegal and have worked in this area as well as the other areas I will discuss, I had less difficulty understanding my legal rights.
The first thing to remember is that it is your responsibility to check with your local civil rights commission to find out what your rights are. For example, in my job, I had to file a complaint with the local civil rights chapter because my employer had under 15 employees. If your employer has 15 or more employees, then you file with the local chapter of the EEOC, which allows you more retribution. In my state, I am only entitled to back pay.
After you find that out, you must decide if you need any accommodations and what they are. The accommodations cannot be a burden to the employer's business. For example, adding special equipment for you only is a burden. Adding equipment that is required by law is not.
You have no legal duty to disclose your disability to your employer unless it would make you unable to perform the job satisfactorily. If you want to be a stock boy at a supermarket and cannot lift over 10 lbs and the job requires you be able to lift 50, the employer can turn you down or terminate you.
In my case, I was able to perform the job as it required reading, writing, research, docketing and calendaring, as well as customer interaction. One fine day, I parked in a handicapped spot and the boss noticed. He asked why I was parked there. I told him I had no legal duty to disclose it to him. He asked if it was a fake placard. I repeated myself. He then told me I could not be trusted. That type of behavior is illegal. I decided to tell him I had MS. He then told me I did not look like I had it, he knew people that have it and They were in bad shape.
I then decided to tell the three other employees there and one said she had daughter who had it, which made me feel more at ease. It seemed everyone was fine with it, until the attorney I was working for got so overloaded in cases and became angry with me all the time for directing him on the cases I needed attended to.
The rest of my case is below. I won't repeat it here. My boss was very volatile and was reminded of it often. When I finally left, I was assaulted out of the door, after all the hard work and hours I put in that were extra. Besides filing a restraining order and assault charge against him, I also filed a charge with the local civil rights commission.
I found out a few other things as well. I got an attorney with legal aid for his unemployment appeal (he claims I quit because I gave him his keys and told him I was working  9-5 only and as we were in a federally insured bank building that opened and closed 9-6). He clearly fired me and had asked me to quit several times due to my MS as he thought it "beauty parlor bullshit", he did not have time for it and it was a "bunch of "hoo haa". Also illegal.
He then demanded medical records in front of employees, had discussions with me that were confidential in front of other employees (ADA says they must be manager or administrator of the business), made fun of me and told other employees that I had MS. Illegal. He also told me I needed to quit based on my MS as he felt it was disrupting his firm.
The accomodations I asked for were the following: To give me a few minutes to process his requests (I worked up to 30 cases at a time), although any reasonable person would have asked for that; access to the elevator as I could not climb stairs; and the biggie - no more working over 8 hours a day.
These were all more than reasonable, which he met with disdain and the best ability I have ever seen to be as unreasonable as possible.
So, moral of the story is this: check with your local civil rights division and ask what your rights are at work;
make sure any accomodations you ask for are reasonable and needed;
and if you have an experience similar to mind, you do not go to the court to file charges, you go to the commission and exhaust your administrative remedies first. Be sure to document everything, keep e-mails and any other evidence you may have to file with the commission because they are generally overloaded. After filing, call and get your investigator's name and number (e-mail is best) so you can stay current. You do not need an attorney unless the commission finds in your favor and you go to conciliation. In most states you must file within 180 days of the discrimination and the commission has 270 days to investigate. After that time, you get a right to sue letter and you can file in court. However, court is long and costly so it is best to see if the commission can help you get the result you need.

That's it for now, may yo have a wonderfilled day!

1 comment:

  1. Hi Cristen - Wow, what a story and journey you are on! Thanks for creating this blog and sharing your insights and information. Such persistence to prevail,and honesty. I especially like your observation that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. Bravo. I look forward to more inspiration. Also, how challenging to have so little family support. Bruce B.

    ReplyDelete