Violence Risk vs. Fitness for Duty Evaluation in New York

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

Short answer: a violence risk assessment estimates likelihood of future harm; a fitness for duty evaluation asks whether the employee can perform essential job functions now. Conflating them produces opinions that fail on cross-examination. A fitness-for-duty referral and a violence risk referral feel adjacent, so they are routinely collapsed into one report. They are not the same question, and an opinion that answers both at once usually answers neither well. Two questions that travel together but diverge Fitness for duty asks a present-capacity question: can this employee, right now, perform the essential functions of a defined job, with or without reasonable accommodation, without posing

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