Essex County Trucking Company Fired Worker With Sleep Apnea: OAG

ESSEX COUNTY, NJ — A trucking company based in Essex County must pay a former employee with sleep apnea $30,000 after it allegedly fired him because of his medical condition, even though doctors repeatedly said that he was “fit for duty,” authorities said.

On Wednesday, the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General announced that P. Judge & Sons Inc., a trucking company located in Essex County, must pay a former employee, “R.B.,” $15,000 to cover lost wages and another $15,000 for pain and suffering.

The name of the employee is being withheld to protect his medical privacy, the OAG Division on Civil Rights stated.

According to the OAG, the former employee worked as a yard switcher at the P. Judge & Sons facility in Port Newark. Among other duties, he conducted vehicle inspections, maintained the yard and emptied containers and trailers from the yard to the loading docks.

He was later diagnosed with sleep apnea, a chronic and ongoing condition that can cause excessive daytime drowsiness.

The OAG provided the following background on the case:

“In March 2015, R.B. underwent a physical exam required periodically for workers in his job by the U.S. Department of Transportation. The exam resulted in a diagnosis of sleep apnea, and R.B. was placed on medical leave. R.B. then began treatment for his apnea and later underwent a physical examination at Concentra Medical Center – the company’s medical provider -- in Newark. As a result of the physical, R.B. was issued a Medical Examiner’s Certificate (MEC) clearing him to return to his job. The MEC was valid for one month, and R.B. was instructed to continue treatment for his apnea after resuming work. Despite the MEC clearing him to return, R.B. was denied reinstatement. Allegedly, his supervisor told R.B. that he needed an MEC valid for at least three months. However, after R.B. underwent a subsequent physical examination and obtained an MEC valid for three months, he was again denied reinstatement.”

After seven months of being out of work – and repeated denials of reinstatement despite two MECs declaring him "fit" – R.B. filed a formal complaint with the Division on Civil Rights.

During an investigation by the division, one company official at P. Judge & Sons allegedly told investigators that R.B. was not permitted to resume work because he was continuing to receive treatment for his sleep apnea, and the company is “under no obligation to employ individuals whose health is non-compliant.”

Another company official allegedly said that R.B. technically was not “terminated,” and that technically, the worker never contacted the company again after being denied reinstatement the last time.

According to the OAG, the same official contended that reinstating R.B. was a “potential liability,” because an employee afflicted with sleep apnea “can go to work … three months goes by, then he’s off, has to go to the doctor, and we’re getting charged by Concentra for the medical treatment.”

Division Director Sashihara noted that a division investigation found nothing in DOT regulations, or in P. Judge & Sons’ own internal policies, to support the suggestion that the company was barred from reinstating R.B. once he presented either the one-month or three-month MEC.

“We know from our investigation that the company has, in the past, returned employees to work on the basis of a one-month MEC,” Sashihara said. “We know that because company officials who we interviewed told us so. The law is the law, and ignorance of it – or disagreement with it – is no excuse. No matter the opinions or intentions behind it, employers and managers with no medical training cannot simply decide to terminate a worker based solely on assumptions, internet articles and the anecdotal experiences related by people they know, which is what we allege took place here.”

In addition to paying the former employee $30,000, P. Judge & Sons is required under the settlement to “adopt a variety of workplace policy and training reforms.” The company also must submit to state monitoring of its treatment of employees and job applicants with disabilities for the next two years, the OAG stated.

“This case should serve as a reminder to employers across New Jersey that our Law Against Discrimination prevents disability discrimination, and we are committed to ensuring those rights are protected,” said Attorney General Gurbir Grewal. “In the face of repeated certifications of fitness for duty by licensed medical professionals, employers simply do not have authority to impose their own, uninformed biases and terminate a person with a disability.”

SLEEP APNEA IN THE WORKPLACE

Sleep apnea as it relates to the workplace – including those with heavy machinery – has been a heated topic of discussion in North Jersey in recent years.

The disorder is not rare among transportation workers, some experts say. Metro-North recently found that as many as 11.6 percent of its engineers in the New York City suburbs may suffer from the disorder, the Associated Press stated.

A NJ Transit train crash at Hoboken Terminal that killed a woman and injured more than 100 other commuters in 2016 was likely caused in large part by the engineer's untreated sleep disorder, according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

• See related article: Hoboken Train Crash Likely Caused By Sleep Apnea, NTSB Says
• See related article: Feds Play Hot Potato Over Sleep Apnea Testing After 2 Train Crashes

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