ADA Psychiatric Accommodation Disputes: The Expert Role

Stephan M. Carlson, MD, MBA, FAPA · Employment and Fitness

Short answer: in ADA psychiatric accommodation disputes, the expert's role is to connect a documented condition to essential job functions and to specific accommodations, and to address direct-threat claims with evidence rather than assumption. An accommodation dispute turns on a question a clinician cannot answer alone: can this employee perform the essential functions of the job, with or without a reasonable accommodation, without posing a direct threat? The psychiatric opinion supplies the functional half of that equation; the strongest reports never reach past it to the legal conclusion. The standard these disputes actually apply Federal and New York law converge on a structure but not o

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