Hiring can feel like a checklist: background check, drug test, start date. But when an applicant raises a disability-related issue, those boxes stop being routine, and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) starts asking questions.
TL;DR: An applicant disclosed prescription medications that could affect a required drug test and asked for help verifying them. The employer treated verification as the applicant’s responsibility and rescinded the job offer. A jury found the employer and related entities liable for failure to accommodate under the ADA and awarded back pay, emotional distress damages, and punitive damages. The court refused to overturn the verdict, reduced compensatory and punitive damages to an unallocated $50,000 under the statutory cap, and ordered limited injunctive relief.
When pre-employment paperwork becomes an ADA issue
An applicant interviewed for a position at a senior living facility and cleared early hiring steps. During the process, she disclosed that she had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and took prescription medications that could affect a required drug test. She tried more than once to provide documentation and, when she did not receive guidance through the testing process, asked the employer for help verifying the prescriptions.
The employer required drug testing as a condition of employment. But the trial evidence supported the view that the employer treated medication verification as something the applicant needed to handle on her own with the testing vendor. There was no consistent follow-up, no clear point person, and no meaningful back-and-forth aimed at resolving the issue.
The applicant was ultimately told she would not be hired.
The EEOC sued, alleging that the employer failed to provide a reasonable accommodation during the application process.
A jury agreed.
Why the employer lost, and why the court would not undo it
After a five-day trial, the jury found the employer and related entities liable for failing to accommodate the applicant and awarded $5,083 in back pay, $50,000 for emotional suffering, and $350,000 in punitive damages.
Post-trial, the employer asked the court to overturn the verdict or grant a new trial. The court declined.
The court did, however, grant a remittitur as a matter of law. Because the combined compensatory and punitive damages exceeded the statutory cap, the court reduced those damages to an unallocated total of $50,000.
Even with that reduction, the order reads like a cautionary tale about process and proof. One of the employer’s core arguments was that the applicant abandoned the interactive process by failing to return a phone call. But the evidence about that call, including whether a voicemail existed and what it contained, was not definitive. The court held that the jury could reasonably conclude the employer’s actions were inconsistent with a good-faith interactive process.
Two other parts of the decision stand out.
First, the court pointed to evidence supporting punitive damages, including testimony that the employer submitted false statements during the EEOC investigation and testimony that key personnel received no ADA training.
Second, even after trial, the employer could not show that the problem was unlikely to recur. The court granted injunctive relief in part, requiring annual ADA training for three years, adoption and maintenance of a detailed ADA policy addressing hiring procedures, and notice to the EEOC when those steps were completed.
The ADA does not wait until someone’s first day
The timing matters. The ADA can apply during hiring. When an applicant raises a disability-related issue connected to a hiring requirement, including drug testing, the interactive process can be triggered before employment ever begins.
Treating the issue as “between you and the lab” can look less like efficiency and more like abdication.
Employer takeaways
- Pre-hire accommodations are still accommodations. If an applicant raises a disability-related concern during hiring, the ADA may already be in play.
- Drug testing does not pause ADA obligations. When prescription medications are part of the issue, the safer move is engagement, not deflection.
- Delegating compliance is not compliance. An employer remains responsible for the interactive process even when drug testing is handled by a third party.
- Training is not optional in practice. A lack of ADA training is not neutral at trial, and juries tend to treat it as indifference.
- Even “wins” have costs. The court capped certain damages, but the employer still bought itself a jury verdict, an injunction, and the legal fees that come with a five-day trial and post-trial motions.
Bottom line
Most ADA failures are not about hostility toward accommodation. They are about silence, delay, and nobody taking responsibility. This case shows how expensive that can get, even before day one.