Reasonable Accommodations for Mental Illness

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently announced that it had settled a lawsuit against Interconnect Cable Technologies Corporation in which the EEOC had alleged that ICTC had discriminated against one of its employees who suffered from a disability.  The EEOC’s lawsuit claimed that ICTC first demoted and then fired its employee who had been hospitalized due to a mental illness from which the employee suffered.  The employee, who suffered from major depressive disorder, was hospitalized for a short time due to her disability.  When she attempted to return to work after this hospitalization, ICTC took away her job duties.  Shortly after that, ICTC demoted the employee and cut her pay.  Eventually, about four months after the hospitalization, ICTC terminated her employment.  Such alleged conduct is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of an employee’s disability.  See EEOC v. Interconnect Cable Technologies Corp., No. 8:20-cv-00644 (M.D. Fla.).