On the Monday morning after becoming intoxicated and acting inappropriately at the company Christmas party, an employee, Mr. Huffman, was fired. Following the termination, he claimed that he was an alcoholic and that the company should have known and accommodated that disability.
The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario held that in order to establish discrimination, Mr. Huffman needed to establish that: (i) he suffered from a disability; (ii) he made his employer aware of the disability; and (iii) the employer failed to accommodate him.
In this case, the employer was able to demonstrate that it did not know that Mr. Huffman was an alcoholic; rather, it simply thought that he became intoxicated on that particular day. Mr. Huffman was unable to demonstrate that he had ever advised the employer about his disability. His discrimination complaint was dismissed.
While this decision may sound reasonable to the average person, it is in fact a welcome decision for employers who have often wondered about the extent to which they are required to guess whether or not a troubled employee may suffer from a hidden underlying disability such as alcoholism.
Huffman v. Mitchell Plastics: http://www.canlii.org/en/on/onhrt/doc/2011/2011hrto1745/2011hrto1745.html
