Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), originally a wartime trauma-based psychiatric condition referred to as “shell shock” and “battle fatigue,” is increasingly at issue in employment litigation. Misunderstood and misapplied, PTSD claims by employees are likely to become even more commonplace now that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) proposed regulations under the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA) state that a PTSD diagnosis “will consistently result in a finding of [an employee's] disability.”1
Employees who believe they were subjected to workplace offenses and injustices have joined wartime veterans and survivors of natural disasters, physical assaults, or other traumatic events in claiming that PTSD has seriously disrupted their lives. Some do so in the course of requesting workplace accommodations, others in the context of discrimination and harassment lawsuits. The statistics are significant. According to an August 2009 U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs study, approximately 8-12 percent of the population in the United States will meet the criteria for PTSD at some point in their lives.2
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