I Am Not a Lawyer

I just wrapped up a project writing some Web pages for a law firm that wanted a page on wrongful termination (in most states, that’s firing someone in violation of public policy). In listing the various types of discrimination that make a wrongful termination, I realized that I had just read something about Congress passing a bill that prohibited genetic discrimination. So, like a good “netizen,” I Googled it. The bill is called the Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act (GINA to its friends), and it has already passed both houses of Congress with very little opposition. Various media sources seem convinced that the president will sign it. I hope this reflects genuine bipartisan concern about genetic discrimination rather than any toothlessness of the bill.

Only after looking this up did I realize how huge this could be for trial lawyers. (I admit it — I get behind on law blogs far too frequently and may well have missed some posts on the subject.) Most people don’t realize that they can be fired for a lot of reasons that they wouldn’t consider fair, at least in the majority of U.S. states. In digging up information on this for a previous client, I found several news articles about people who were fired for smoking outside work as well as a beer deliveryman who was fired for drinking a competitor’s beer during his off hours. More pertinent to the genetics bill, there was also an employer that docked employees’ paychecks for offenses like being overweight, which could lead to expensive-to-insure health problems. All of this is perfectly legal and not actionable in at least 43 states. Once this bill becomes law, at least some of that could change.

GINA wouldn’t protect the beer guy, of course, but it would stave off employment discrimination against people with family histories or genetic tests showing they might develop serious diseases. The price of health insurance is forcing businesses and everyone else to take drastic steps, so this is a serious concern. It seems like a pretty short leap from firing someone for smoking or being overweight to firing someone for having the BRCA gene, which significantly raises your risk of breast cancer. I don’t know how often this actually happens — how many of us bother getting expensive genetic tests in the absence of some specific risk? And it’s not like employers will self-report discrimination. But I’m delighted to see that we’ve taken some steps to nip any genetic discrimination problem in the bud.

Possibly also of interest: The Boston Herald asks various people who should know what GINA means for the public.