Jury to decide essential functions of waste job

LAFAYETTE, La. — Waste Management of Louisiana will face a container technician’s disability discrimination claims in a federal trial. The technician says he was wrongfully fired after a pacemaker was installed to monitor his heart murmur. If a jury finds that the employee cannot perform the essential functions of a container technician because of his heart condition, then the company has offered a lawful reason for termination. But if they instead find he was still qualified to do his job because the welding his pacemaker precludes is not an essential function, then firing him “constitute[s] the discrimination that the ADA forbids.”