Work Stress and the ADA

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about stress, and the anxiety it can cause.

Stress-induced anxiety can cripple someone. According to the Anxiety and Depressions Association of America:

• 72 percent of people who have daily stress and anxiety say it interferes with their lives at least moderately.
• 40 percent experience persistent stress or excessive anxiety in their daily lives.
• 30 percent with daily stress have taken prescription medication to manage stress, nervousness, emotional problems, or lack of sleep.
• 28 percent have had an anxiety or panic attack.

What happens, however, when the thing inducing the stress and anxiety is the workplace itself? What are an employer’s obligations under the ADA to accommodate this mental health disorder?

Let’s start with the basics.

Under the ADA, the term “disability” means, among other definitions, that an individual has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more “major life activities.” One such major life activity that an impairment can substantially limit is one’s ability to work. In this context, however, work means something more than one’s current position or workplace. It means a significant restriction in one’s ability to perform either a class of jobs or a broad range of jobs in various classes as compared to the average person having comparable training, skills, and abilities. It does not mean a substantial limitation in performing the unique aspects of a single specific job.

It is for this reason that almost all courts that have examined this issue have concluded that anxiety or other mental health issues caused by workplace stress are not ADA-covered disabilities that an employer must accommodate.