Location: North Carolina
my boyfriend was working at a restaurant as a prep cook and was terminated yesterday because of his inability to complete a specific task. My boyfriend is a disabled veteran and notifies every job he applies to. So they were aware of specific limitations that he had prior to hiring him.
For the past week or so they had him serving and cutting chicken, which is not the job he was initially hired for. He let them know that due to nerve damage and his head injuries that he wasn’t sure if it was safe for him to be operating the machine that cuts the chicken. Yesterday, they told him that he would no longer be needed due to his inability to operate the cleaver for cutting the chicken. Is this legal here? I did some research but it really wasn’t clear.
Comments
Did he, at any point, ask this employer for a reasonable accommodation under the ADA for a specific disability?
Did he present his employer with paperwork from accommodations from a medical professional?
Also, how many employees work at the restaurant. If there are few employees working, it may be considered unreasonable to have him not cut chicken if there aren’t other employees in a position to cover. (For example, they could likely argue that a food runner/server who is taking food to tables shouldn’t be handling raw meat in between runs.)