Night-shift security guard Theodore Rongers had argued that under the Americans with Disabilities Act, his hospital employer “had a duty to reasonably accommodate the side effect of his heart medication by permitting him to sleep during his shift”. [Ohio Employer’s Law Blog; Rongers v. University Hospitals of Cleveland, Cuyahoga County Ct. of Appeals, May 7 (PDF)] I discussed sleeping guards who were more successful in saving their jobs in my book The Excuse Factory (Google Books, limited search), published a decade ago and excerpted at the time in Washington Monthly (see also).
3 Comments
Umm, no. If he works an 8 or 9 hour shift, he has the rest of the day to catch up on his sleep. Perhaps he would have preferred the hospital had not given him a job when they found out he had heart medication that made him sleepy and might have caused him to fall asleep on the job?
You would think that Rongers would be embarrassed to have been caught sleeping on the job when his job as a night watchman explicitly requires him to be awake. Obviously you would be wrong. Rather he has the chutzpah to argue that he should be legally allowed to sleep on the job.
Rongers said that his sleeping did not adversely affect hospital security because the dispatcher could wake him if his presence was immediately required.
What and disturb his sleep? How inconsiderate would that be! I also wonder about the lawyer who took his case. But I guess being a lawyer means that you have no shame.
Hope there are no plans to obtain a pilot’s license.