Overview
Join Patricia Eyres, Managing Partner at Eyres Law Group as she covers the impact obesity and chronic health condions have on the workplace.
Obesity and Chronic Health Conditions: Impact on WC claims, RTW and Stay-at-Work for both Industrial and Non- Industrial Conditions
Completely updated from the webinar presented for PWC group in June, 2015
Description: Managing workplace accommodations following an injury or acute illness is challenging, including inflammatory joint disease, heart disease, diabetes, respiratory ailments, recurring allergies, environmental sensitivities, episodic anxiety, and more. Obesity is fast becoming a source of disability discrimination lawsuits. We will cover:
- When obesity or related chronic conditions qualify for protection under the California FEHA and Federal ADA.
- How to evaluate whether an employee’s obesity is itself a disability; or whether it contributes to other disabling chronic illness, including respiratory, circulatory, cardiovascular, muscular, digestive or even sensory conditions.
- Trends and strategies to address weight gain after an industrial injury considered within the context of an American obesity epidemic and the recent reclassification of obesity as a disease.
- Impact of industrial injuries on weight gain, including a reduction in physical activity resulting in physical de-conditioning, depression, stress, financial loss impacting ability to afford healthy foods, onset of type 2 diabetes in at risk populations, increased blood pressure, and unintended consequences of recuperation, treatment and derivative injury (e.g. more time being sedentary; side effects of psych meds).
- When obesity or associated conditions will impact an industrial injury and your agency’s early return work programs.
- How to address the impact of non-industrial chronic conditions on the resolution of an industrial claim, including circumstances where non- industrial limitations will prevent an injured worker from participating in early return to work programs.
- Your obligations to engage in an “interactive process” with employees who have industrial and/or non-industrial chronic conditions before concluding that the employee cannot perform his or her job, even with reasonable accommodations.
- Dealing with vague restrictions or leave certifications for chronically ill employees and why health care reform will affect your return to work process.
- The significant limits on an employers’ defense of “imminent and substantial safety threat” in a disability discrimination claim by a chronically ill employee.
- Danger zones in raising “safety” as a reason to remove a worker who is obese or has other chronic conditions, without conducting an objective evaluation and relying upon reasonable medical judgments.
Need More Info or Help?
We hope you can join us. Feel free to contact Doug McGill for more details.
Phone: 916-850-7300
Email: dmcgill@csac-eia.org