After suffering a brain injury, your mind is afloat in a sea of questions. How long will I be feeling this way? Will people be tolerant toward me and my injury? Can I afford missing work and paying medical expenses? Before answering these unknowns fueling your anxiety, it helps to answer another question you’ve probably posed: what is the law if I sustained a brain injury?
Commonality of Brain Injuries
Brain injury is incredibly common in Canada. At approximately 165,000 new incidents each year, brain injury is 44 times more common than spinal injury, 30 times more common than breast cancer, and 400 times more common than HIV/AIDS. Yet brain injury research receives less funding federally than any of the preceding causes receive provincially. Despite these numbers, all is not dire for people suffering from brain injury. Though funding may be lacking, there is legal protection for people with disabilities as a result of brain injury.
Brain Injury and the Law
The question, “What is the law if I sustained a brain injury?” is a multifaceted one. The effects of brain injury are widespread, with symptoms that vary based on severity, class of injury, health history, and so many other factors. Meanwhile, the law covers virtually all aspects of society. So, to wonder about “the law” for “a brain injury” is somewhat quixotic. However, we can focus on the laws that surround a very important topic for brain injury survivors: employment accommodation and disabilities.
Your Career after a Brain Injury
Brain injuries can harm your physical, emotional, and cognitive functioning, and sufferers often fear that these new disabilities will lead to the inability to perform their duties at work (and eventual termination). Fortunately, there are strong anti-discriminatory measures in the Ontario Human Rights Code (OHRC). Generally, people with disabilities in the workplace have the right to having those disabilities accommodated, short of “undue hardship” to the business. These accommodations can take many forms.
- Accommodations for Brain Injury Sufferers
- Essential vs. Non-essential Duties: Essential duties (i.e. duties that directly constitute the performance of your job) must be accommodated where possible, and non-essential duties (i.e. duties tangential to the performance of your job) must be either accommodated or transferred to another.
- Non-evident Disabilities: Employers are not in violation of the OHRC if they terminate or punish a disabled employee and are not aware of this employee’s disability. For example, if you experience only emotional and cognitive impairments after your brain injury and do not disclose this information to your employer, they are not legally required to provide accommodation.
- Medical Reports: Your employer is not necessarily required to provide accommodation of their own accord; rather, your doctor should recommend accommodation that your employer can then implement.
If you’re still asking, “What is the law if I sustained a brain injury?” look for the best brain injury lawyers in Ontario and get your free personal injury consultation today.
Sources:
http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/iv-human-rights-issues-all-stages-employment/9-more-about-disability-related-accommodation
http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1298&context=edicollect
http://nbia.ca/brain-injury-statistics/