Mental Disorder, Work Disability, and the Law

Abstract

A CO fliOfl scenario in disability discriniination cases involves an employee-often an older employce-who is fired and files a lawsuit, claiming that he or she has been discrirninated against on the basis of disability. Because of delays in the legal process, it may be months or years l)efOre a decision is rendered. Meanwhile, the person needs to survive. He or she is older, can’t get another job, and needs to pay the rent and buy groceries. The person applies for disal)ility l)enefits. The instant that the defendants bring the application for disability benefits to the attention of the court, the judge throws out the discrimination case, often lashing out angrily at the plaintiff for attempting to deceive the court. According to many courts, either \OI1 are eligible for disability l)enefits because von are unable to work, or you have a disability discrimination claim that depends on I)eing “otherwise qualified” to perform the job. Disability law is built on such mutually exclusive categories, ignoring the complexity and economic pressures in people’s lives. Another common scenario that plays out among people who receive disability benefits is that ofthe person who yearns to work but does not because of terror that the jot) will not work out or will not last, and hesitation to abandon the relative security of disability benefits for employment carrying neither security nor health care benefits. This book, edited by two of the nation’s most prominent scholars of mental disability and law, seeks to address the tension between disability benefits and disability discrimination. Disability benefits evolved from the theory that disabled people cannot work because their disabilities prevent theni froni vorking. On the other hand, the passage ofthe Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) was cxplicitly predicated on the assumption that many people receiving disability benefits are unemployed 1)ecaUSe of discrimination based on ignorance and stereotypes rather than innate incapacit) These tensions are at their greatest in the area of psychiatric disabilit where suspicions of malingering and weak character are raised about peopie receiving disability benefits. In fact, low wages, negligible health l)eliefitS, lack of job security, and stereotYpes at)OUt dangerousness often make stressful employment even more harrowing for people diagnosed with psychiatric disabilities. This 1)00k recognizes the conipelling need to produce an integrated theory of social policy that accounts for and includes both disability bemiefits and disability discrimination law. I agree with OflC contributor, Norman Daniels, that the policies underlying disability I)enefits and disability discrirnination law are theoretically not contraclictory But the inure important point, made t)\’ contril)utor Christopher Bell, is that in today’s political climate “the Percei\Ted harmony [between disability l)eneflts and disal)ility discriiiiination law] is illusoiy” It is only a matter of time before Congress gets around to “ reform” in this area, and all who care about the lives of