ABSTRACT
When an employer decides about employment or work status solely or primarily on the basis that a worker has epilepsy, the worker may be able to invoke federal, state, or local antidiscrimination laws. These laws generally forbid employers from discriminating against workers on the basis of handicap. While an attempt to carefully characterize a worker’s epilepsy is ordinarily central to a determination about discrimination, persons with a history of epilepsy may be barred from certain occupations regardless of the facts they are seizure-free, compliant with treatment, and exhibit normal neurologic examinations. In some states, aggrieved workers must exhaust administrative remedies before going to court to assert discrimination claims, and a few states allow such claims only against agencies of state or local governments and not against private employers. Ordinarily the burden will be on a worker to prove that an employer discriminated solely on the basis of the worker’s handicap.
