Fit for Duty: When and How to Ask

Why this matters

After a tech falls off a ladder, limps in the next morning, or starts making mistakes that look like something is wrong, every owner wants to ask the same thing: are you okay to work? Sometimes that question is required, because sending an impaired tech up a roof or into a panel is the shop's problem. Sometimes it is unlawful, because it reaches into a medical condition the shop has no business asking about. The line between the two is not whether you care. It is whether you have something concrete about the job in front of you, and most owners have never been told where the line sits.

The test, and who it binds

For employers with 15 or more employees, the ADA allows a medical question or exam of a current employee only when it is job-related and consistent with business necessity (42 USC 12112(d)(4)). Many state laws apply the same test to smaller shops: California's covers employers of five or more, and some states reach every employer. Check yours; a three-person shop is often covered by state law even where the federal rule does not reach.

The EEOC's guidance on medical inquiries of employees reads business necessity as a reasonable belief, based on objective evidence, that one of two things is true: the employee's ability to perform an essential function is impaired by a medical condition, or the employee poses a direct threat because of one. "Objective evidence" is the load-bearing phrase. It means something you saw, measured, or were told by a reliable source, not a hunch, a rumor, or a diagnosis you have guessed at.

What counts as objective evidence

Counts:

• An incident: a fall, a cut, a vehicle collision, an electrical contact, a near miss involving the tech's own error.
• Observed signs on the job: limping, favoring an arm, inability to grip a tool, confusion about a routine task, slurred speech.
• A measurable change in work that the tech himself links to a condition ("my hand's been numb, that's why I dropped it").
• A credible report from a coworker or a customer of specific behavior, which you then check.
• A tech's own request for an accommodation where the need is not obvious.

Does not count by itself:

• Age.
• A rumor that he is seeing a therapist, or taking medication.
• A diagnosis you know about but that has not affected the work.
• A general drop in performance with no sign it is medical. That is a performance conversation, and you have it as one.

What you may and may not ask

The pattern in the left column: questions about the job and the specific event. The right column: questions about the person's health generally. "Can you lift 55 lb to the roof today?" is about the job. "What's wrong with your back?" is about him.

Everyday kindness is not a medical inquiry. "How are you doing?" and "you look beat, everything okay?" are fine, and the conversation that sometimes follows is a different article. See related: Having the "Are You Okay?" Conversation with a Coworker.

After an incident, specifically

An incident is the clearest objective evidence a shop gets, so the room to ask is widest here, but it is room about the incident and the job.

On the spot. Ask what happened and whether he is hurt, give first aid, and decide whether he goes to a clinic. That is not an ADA problem; it is the injury process. See related: The Injury and Near-Miss Reporting SOP.

Before he goes back up. You may ask whether he can safely do the specific tasks on the next job, and you may hold him off those tasks until you are satisfied. If he says yes and you watched him limp to the van, you may require a clinician's note on specific tasks before he climbs. The note answers "can he do these functions", using the role's physical demands description, not "what is his diagnosis". See related: Writing a Physical Demands Description for Each Role.

Coming back from leave. Under the FMLA, for employers it covers, you may require a fitness-for-duty certification for the condition that caused the leave if you require it uniformly of everyone in similar jobs (29 CFR 825.312, the Department of Labor's FMLA rule), and it is limited to that condition. Outside the FMLA, the EEOC's guidance still requires objective evidence before an exam on return.

What you may not do after an incident: use it to reach the rest of his health. A ladder fall justifies a question about his ankle and his ability to climb, not about the heart medication you heard he takes.

Direct threat, the high bar

Removing someone from work because of a medical condition that might cause harm requires more than worry. Under 29 CFR 1630.2(r), a direct threat is a significant risk of substantial harm to the employee or others that cannot be eliminated or reduced by a reasonable accommodation, based on an individualized assessment of the person's current ability using the best available medical or objective evidence. The factors are how long the risk lasts, how severe the harm, how likely it is, and how imminent.

In practice, for a field shop: a tech who passed out on a roof last week and has not been evaluated meets it easily. A tech with a controlled condition who has never had an episode at work does not, however much the condition worries you.

One rule, two techs

Run the same test on two people in the same shop of 18 employees, so the ADA applies.

Ray, 51, the morning after a ladder slip. He came down the last three rungs fast on a Thursday, says he is fine, and on Friday morning he is limping visibly and wincing getting into the van. His Friday route has two rooftop units.

• Objective evidence: yes. A witnessed incident yesterday plus an observable limp today.
• Job-related: yes. His route requires climbing a 24 ft ladder twice.
• What the owner does: swaps the two rooftop calls for ground-level work, asks Ray to see the clinic the shop's comp carrier uses, and asks for a note on whether he can climb and carry. Two days later the note clears ground work and no ladders for a week. The owner does not ask what the clinic found.

Dee, 34, "seems off lately." Over a month the owner hears from one tech that Dee has been "really quiet", and Dee mentions in passing she has a doctor's appointment every Tuesday. Her callback rate and her ticket times are unchanged.

• Objective evidence about the job: no. Quiet is not impairment, an appointment is not a diagnosis, and her measurable work is the same.
• What the owner may do: a normal check-in ("how's it going? anything I can make easier?") and keep the Tuesday appointment workable.
• What the owner may not do: require a psychological evaluation, ask what the appointments are for, or ask whether she is on medication.

What would flip each case. If Ray had walked in normally on Friday, with no limp and no wince, the evidence would be the slip alone, which supports asking how he is and watching the first climb, not requiring a note. If Dee's callbacks had doubled over the same month and a customer had reported her confused about a gas valve, the job evidence would exist, and the owner could address the performance and, if she raised a condition, start the accommodation conversation. Even then, the question is about her ability to do the work, not her diagnosis. A shop in a state whose own law covers mental health inquiries more strictly than the ADA does may have less room than this in both cases.

How to word the request for a note

The note you get back is only as narrow as the question you send. A request that says "please confirm he is fit for duty" invites either a one-line yes that tells you nothing or a page of medical history you should not have. Send the clinician three things and ask one question.

• The tasks. The role's physical demands description, with the specific tasks at issue marked: "climbs a 24 ft extension ladder 2 to 4 times a day; carries 30 to 35 lb frequently; works on roofs on about 7 percent of calls."
• What happened. One factual line: "slipped from a ladder on Thursday, observed limping Friday."
• The GINA notice. The short safe harbor paragraph telling the provider not to include genetic information.
• The question. "Can he perform these tasks now, and if not, which ones, and for how long?"

The answer you want reads like "ground-level work only, no ladders or lifts over 25 lb, review in 7 days". It maps to lines on your card and to a schedule change, and it contains no diagnosis. If what comes back is a diagnosis with no task restrictions, send the question again rather than interpreting the diagnosis yourself.

Keep what you learn confidential

Under the ADA, medical information about an employee goes in a separate, confidential file, not the personnel file, and is shared only with supervisors who need to know about restrictions, first aid and safety staff, and government officials who ask. In a small shop that means dispatch hears "no ladders this week", not why. When you request medical information, the EEOC's GINA regulations (29 CFR Part 1635) recommend a short notice telling the provider not to send genetic information, including family history.

Where to stop and call someone

This is not legal advice. Stop and take advice from an employment attorney or your HR provider before you require any medical or psychological exam, take a tech off work on a direct-threat theory, discipline someone who has disclosed a condition, or act on a note you think is wrong. Walk in with the dated record of what you saw, what the job requires (the physical demands description), and every conversation you have had.

References

• 42 USC 12112(d)(4) and 12114; EEOC, Enforcement Guidance on Disability-Related Inquiries and Medical Examinations of Employees under the ADA
• EEOC, 29 CFR 1630.2(r) (direct threat) and 29 CFR Part 1635 (GINA, including the safe harbor notice)
• U.S. Department of Labor, 29 CFR 825.312 (FMLA fitness-for-duty certification)
• See related: The Injury and Near-Miss Reporting SOP
• See related: Writing a Physical Demands Description for Each Role