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Carpal Tunnel Syndrome not a Disability
An Anonymous Coward writes: "It turns out that the Supreme Court of the United States doesn't think Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is a real disability. See here for details." Read the summary or the whole opinion. In a nutshell: just because a woman was sufficiently disabled that she couldn't perform her job due to carpal-tunnel, doesn't mean she was sufficiently disabled to be considered disabled under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Everyone who has that nagging pain in your wrists should probably read this decision.
Nowhere did it state that Carpal Tunnel Syndrome was not a disability -- it stated that in the case of the woman named, they were not considering it a disability because she was not impaired sufficently to be unable to do her job.
http://quiz.ravenblack.net/blood.pl?3357354385
Guess we're going to be needing these after all.
It's a pain in the ass to do them, but your wrists will thank you in five years. Young coders might feel invincible now, but any sort of 40hr+ work week will make quick work of the nerves in your hands and arms no matter how young you are.
Also check out this informative (if cute) prevention handbook.
-Erik
This doesn't mean that carpel tunnel isn't a disablity you dolts, it's a very serious problem. This woman's case simply didn't prove that her affliction was serious enough for her to be considered under the ADA.
I posted to
In cases like Williams', "the central inquiry must be whether the claimant is unable to perform the variety of tasks central to most people's daily lives, not whether the claimant is unable to perform the tasks associated with her specific job," the court wrote.
Many people who are in the construction industry, for example, get a bad back over time or are otherwise affected physically over the years of that kind of labor. Many of those people move on to other types of jobs, possibly relating to construction management, sales, inspection, etc. Just because their body no longer allows them to perform one job does not mean they have become disabled.
On the other hand, if said construction worker cannot perform basic daily tasks, such as bathing or dressing, or cooking, they would be classified as disabled.
I Heart Sorting Networks
Woah there moderators! Finish reading before you fire at me:
I've HAD three or four different maladies related to finger-hand-wrist related movement over the last, (oh god, has it been that long?) 15 years.
In all cases, the ones that were _computer_ related were cured by altering the work environment.
The one situation that eventually required surgery, and that was initially thought to be work related, wasn't. It was a Sports related injury. The fact that myself, the office Clinician, and the Workers Comp specified specialist didn't catch it as that is irrelevant. When the _hand_ specialist reviewed it, he stated it was a totally different problem (Intersection Syndrome, not Dequarvains Tendonitis) and not caused by lumping along at a keyboard during the work week.
That's not to say a company isn't liable for providing a safe environment for its employees, It is. But I wouldn't characterise CT as a modern equivalent of lead poisoning.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
Which of course she responded to by filing a lawsuit.
In its brief on the merits, petitioner asks us to reinstate the District Court's grant of summary judgment to petitioner on the manual task issue. In its petition for certiorari, however, petitioner did not seek summary judgment; it argued only that the Court of Appeals' reasons for granting partial summary judgment to respondent were unsound. This Court's Rule 14(1)(a) provides: "Only the questions set out in the petition, or fairly included therein, will be considered by the Court." The question whether petitioner was entitled to summary judgment on the manual task issue is therefore not properly before us. See Irvine v. California, 347 U.S. 128, 129--130 (1954).
Accordingly, we reverse the Court of Appeals' judgment granting partial summary judgment to respondent and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
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I think one piece of wisdom we can garner from this case is that it is important to keep good records of when you worked, what your medical conditions are, and your employer's evaluations. Perhaps it is good to be evaluated by impartial physicians as well.
...there's a simple fix for those of us who may be in the early stages of carpel tunnel and at least pain relief for those who already have it: go get yourself a keyboard & pointing device that doesn't screw up your wrists. Personally, I used to do email tech support - over 300 emails in 8 hours (yes, some were scripted; even still, my wrists/hands were NUMB at the end of the day.) The fix? $170 keyboard - Kinesis Ergo (www.kinesis-ergo.com) countoured keyboard. Yes, it took 3 weeks to get used to it, and people looked @ me funny in the beginning - but hell, we're IT people, we expect that. My wrists stopped hurting after about 2 months of using that keyboard. (No I don't work for kinesis) - In fact, I'm eyeing the DataHand (www.datahand.com) for my next keyboard...
Disability is separate but related to the ADA. IF your CT is considered a job related injury, then it's more of an OSHA thing, with all the related hoo-ha. The ADA is a discrimination law, basically stating that hiring decisions can't be made on the basis of disability, unless the person's disability makes it impossible, without reasonable accomodation, to do a specific job. If this sounds vague, it is: Congress hasn't clearly written a law in years.
So, if you broke your hands when you were trying to change the water in the water cooler, workman's comp law says that you continue to get paid your full rate until you can work again. (of course, they can make you come into work and answer telephones with a hands free set, but that's a light duty assignment).
ADA says that, if an employer can make reasonable accomodations, they cannot hire or fire you simply because you have a disability. What's "reasonable accomodations"? No one knows, and Congress is letting the courts address it.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
RTFA
Congress intended the existence of a disability to be determined in such a case-by-case manner.
...
An individualized assessment of the effect of an impairment is particularly necessary when the impairment is one such as carpal tunnel syndrome, in which symptoms vary widely from person to person.
It was not decided that the Americans with Disabilities Act didn't protect CTS. It was decided that in this woman's case, her specific form of CTS wasn't a disability under the ADA. In order for someone with CTS to be protected by the ADA, their form of CTS must "severely limit major life actives."
Rather, the central inquiry must be whether the claimant is unable to perform the variety of tasks central to most people's daily lives. Also without support is the Sixth Circuit's assertion that the question whether an impairment constitutes a disability is to be answered only by analyzing the impairment's effect in the workplace.
...
Moreover, because the manual tasks unique to any particular job are not necessarily important parts of most people's lives, occupation-specific tasks may have only limited relevance to the manual task inquiry
That speaks for itself. Just because your impairment won't let you perform your job, its not a disability, and your not protected by the ADA. So, we return to CTS. For many of us, it WOULD impair MAJOR life activity. IANAL, however I think that you would have a hard time of it in court.
--Cam
All jocks think about is sports. All nerds think about is sex.
- She wasn't moved to a desk job, but moved to an assembly floor position that didn't require as much manual labor. Specifically she was assigned to a quality control team which did four QC-related tasks, she initially was assigned to rotate between two of the four, two which didn't aggrevate her CTS. Management then got the bright idea to make everyone on the team to rotate through all four tasks, the other two which did aggrevate Williams' CTS.
- The district court (Eastern District of Kentucky) found for Toyota ("granted summary judgement for petitioner" in SCOUS terms means the person in front of the "v."). The Sixth Circut court overturned the district court, ignoring the fact that Williams didn't seem to have any problems keeping up with her hygine and household chores (which appears to be a requirement to qualify for ADA protection.)
-skI've been working with computers for 15 years AND playing with computers at hime for 14 1/2 years with no wrist problem. What's my secret? I take breaks from constant typing/mousing. If my wrists are tired, I browse source listings, go to the john, grab my 15th Coke, and wait until my hands are rested before going back to the keyboard/mouse. Usually (not always), if you don't abuse your body, it won't abuse you.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
This isn't the first ruling of this nature. In
essense, the whole ADA is being pretty much
gutted by a catch 22.
If your disability is such that you are not
capable of doing the job, then you have no
case under ADA. Reasoanbly enough, the ADA
doesn't demand miracles - the employer only
has to make "reasonable accomodation". If
"reasonable accomodation" won't allow you to
do the job, then you have no case.
If your disability is such that you might be
able to do the job with reasonable accomodation,
then you don't have a disability recognized by
the ADA.
this has nothing to do with legislation but is serious. I hate to make this recommendation because it involves microsoft, but get a microsoft natural keyboard (before the elite series so you have standard size keys). I developed carpal tunnel in '96, doc said to wear a wrist brace which helped, but only succeeded at keeping my wrist perfectly straight, which was a pain on a regular keyboard. I found the ms keyboard about that time, have never had carpal come back on me. I put one everywhere I use a computer (bad bad bad microsoft everywhere I go). Anyway, it's understandable that die-hard anti-MSers will never buy this keyboard, but it really does help. there are off brands, etc, but MS is the only one that has the perfect wrist-to-arm angle. don't ask me why. just a suggestion if you haven't figured it out already.
So companies can require people to perform jobs that are injurous to them? I know the Libertarian readers will probably just respond by saying, "Get a job that's not on an assembly line", but then they probably have sufficient education and wealth that they can actually get other kinds of work.
Isn't OSHA supposed to step in somewhere? Do companies actually not realize that it's in their interest to attempt to ensure that their workers' jobs can be performed without injuring them?
This is NOT the Court saying Toyota can require her to do something injurous to herself. It is the Court saying Toyota does not have to redesign a job that has not be found unsafe by OSHA so that it is not painful or aggrevating for her. That is a big difference.
You ask where OSHA is? Trust me, this is the auto injury and OSHA is there, probably with an inspector on the shop floor. OSHA has probility had this job redesigned several times to be safe for the average person. The average person does not have CTS so OSHA safety requirements don't apply.
She argued that her CTS was bad enough that it qualified as a disability under the ADA. If she had won than Toyota could have been required to make reasonable (as defined by the court) accomodations, but even then it would not be absolute (otherwise a blind person could sue if not hired as a paint color match tester for example and the employer would have to find a way to make it work).
The CTS defines a disability as interfering with major life activities of the average person. While making a living qualifies, making a living as a paint inspector does not. Why? Because while the average person does have a job, they do not have a job as a paint inspector.
Herb
Again, feel free to sentence me to death if my questions annoy you. I'll come back in 5 minutes anyway. -Sythi
She in fact filed and settled a claim under workman's comp. From the opinion:
And the brethren went away edified.