Takeaway: The direct threat standard is a high burden for employers to satisfy. Nonetheless, employers may satisfy the standard for safety-sensitive positions when an employee has a serious condition that is not controlled by medication.

An epileptic applicant could not establish disability discrimination by United States Steel Corp. (USS) when he was denied a utility person position after stopping his anti-seizure medication, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled.

Before the plaintiff applied to work at USS's Midwest plant, he had experienced three or four seizures during his lifetime. The first occurred when he was 8 years old and the second when he was 22. His third seizure happened in June 2014 and was followed two months later by what may have been either a heat-related illness or a fourth seizure.

After the June 2014 seizure, the plaintiff began seeing a neurologist, who determined that the plaintiff's seizure disorder was not well-controlled and prescribed him Trileptal. The plaintiff experienced negative side effects from the drug and stopped taking it. After the possible seizure in August 2014, the neurologist switched the plaintiff to a medication called Depakote. By the end of October 2014, the neurologist thought the seizure disorder was well-controlled with Depakote.

In 2016, the plaintiff asked the neurologist if he could get off Depakote. The neurologist noted that the plaintiff had a sister with seizures and thus was at a higher risk of having...

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