Dive Brief:

• NextGen Healthcare did not violate the Americans with Disabilities Act when it fired a salesperson with a sleeping disorder after she sleepwalked into a male colleague’s hotel bed, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held (Harkey v. NextGen Healthcare, Inc., No. 21-50132 (July 15, 2022)).
• Around midnight during an out-of-town sales conference, a male NextGen employee heard a knock on his hotel room door, according to court records. Thinking it was his male co-workers, he opened the door and saw the salesperson wearing nothing but a robe. She dropped the robe, walked in, got into his bed and went to sleep. The male employee called the HR director, who arrived and woke the salesperson up. She explained that she must have been sleepwalking, which she had done since she was a child. NextGen fired her a week later. She was diagnosed with somnambulism, a sleepwalking disorder, the next week.
• The salesperson sued NextGen for violating the ADA. The 5th Circuit affirmed judgement for NextGen. The salesperson couldn’t show she was fired because she had a sleepwalking disorder, the court explained. Rather, she was fired because of what she did when she was sleepwalking, it said.

Dive Insight:

It’s a concept that can be hard to grasp: Under the ADA, employers can’t take action against someone because of their disability. But they can discipline someone for conduct caused by a disability.

In explaining its decision, the court pointed to multiple past cases featuring...

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