Mental Disability Discrimination vs. Emotional Distress

In this blog, I address the confusion a number of potential clients have had between the concept of it being unlawful to discriminate against them due to a mental health disability, and the experience of mental anguish or emotional distress caused by their workplace.  Specifically, a workplace exacerbating or even creating a mental health disability is not the same thing as being subjected to disability discrimination.  Can those two things be related? Very possibly, and they often are.  But they are not one-to-one.     

First of all, the Americans with Disabilities Act as currently amended – along with various states’ laws – prohibit employers from discriminating against employees (1) because of their disability, (2) because of their past history of having a disability, (3) because they appear to have a disability, or (4) because of their association with another person with disability.  And “disability” here is much broader than most people think.  It is not just missing a limb or being unable to walk.  Rather, a disability protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act is any physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity.  “Major life activities” can include many things, from driving or speaking to concentrating or sleeping.

Thus, if your employer treats you differently because you experience an “invisible” mental disability like anxiety or depression, that can still be disability discrimination.  And if you are able to prove that through a lawsuit, you may be able to get various damages from a judge or jury.  These could include things like lost wages, but also squishier things like compensatory damages.  Compensatory damages include the monetary value of mental anguish or emotional distress that an employee suffered because of unlawful discrimination.  To get compensatory damages, you still must prove that they were caused by the employer’s illegal discrimination.  And virtually any discrimination claim can potentially support compensatory damages, not just disability discrimination.

When potential clients have come to me and talked about how horrific their workplace is, and how they were diagnosed with depression or anxiety as a result of how they were treated, some of them will say that that diagnosis means this was disability discrimination.  Here’s the rub, however.  An employer causing an employee emotional distress or mental anguish is not, in and of itself, a disability discrimination claim in Texas.  That could not be the case unless, at bare minimum, the disabilities predated at least some of the awful treatment.  On the other hand, that mistreatment could instead support compensatory damages, assuming you can show it was because of some other unlawful motive, like sex or legally protected activity.