The Daily Record recently conducted an interview with Joseph, Greenwald & Laake principal Brian Markovitz about the growing opioid epidemic as it relates to employers and employees. The article titled “Employers Must Be Aware of Drug Abuse” discusses employer-employee relations in the context of the opioid epidemic and what employers should consider if they have an employee who is struggling with drug addiction.
Brian shares “If you have anyone abusing drugs, you fire them. If they are currently abusing drugs, you can’t have someone working there. You just don’t know what they will do,” However, he pointed out that rehabilitated drug addicts are protected under the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) and that they cannot legally be fired on the grounds that they are in recovery. The issue of how long someone needs to be off drugs in order to receive protection as “rehabilitated,” he said, has not been fully decided by the courts and must be addressed on a case-by-case basis, and employers need to keep possible liability issues in mind.
To read the article in its entirety, please click on The Daily Record logo below.
Brian is a principal in Joseph, Greenwald & Laake’s Labor and Employment and Civil Litigation practice groups. He focuses on helping victims who have suffered severe injustice in the workplace. He represents individuals throughout Maryland, the Washington DC area and across the country in complex employment litigation and appellate matters involving wrongful termination, retaliation by employers in response to reporting fraud or misconduct and discrimination on the basis of race, gender, age and sexual orientation.
