Recently decided by the
Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division. This will likely
be adopted by other jurisdictions as precedent setting
Extract:
“In
this appeal, we consider whether summary judgment was properly granted
to an employer that required a long-term employee whose job
performance was satisfactory to submit to random alcohol testing and
terminated her employment when a test showed she had used alcohol.
Because the record revealed that the basis for the testing and
termination was the employee's voluntary disclosure that she was an
alcoholic and not the result of inadequate job performance, the
imposition of these conditions constituted direct evidence of
discrimination. As a result, the burden of persuasion shifted to the
employer, requiring it to show that the employment actions taken
would have occurred even if it had not considered plaintiff's
disability, see McDevitt v. Bill Good Builders, Inc., 175 N.J. 519,
525 (2003), a burden it failed to satisfy as a matter of law. We
therefore conclude that summary judgment dismissing plaintiff's
disability discrimination claim was inappropriate.”
See
also Links and downloads (under A.D.P. v. Exxonmobil Research and
Engineering Company)
