Mammone v. President and Fellows of Harvard College

On May 12, 2006, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) issued a significant decision, affirming summary judgment for the President and Fellows of Harvard College (Harvard), and holding that a handicapped employee who engages in egregious workplace misconduct will be held to the same standard as a non-handicapped employee who engages in similar misconduct. Specifically, the SJC held that "a handicapped person who engages in egregious misconduct, sufficiently inimical to the interests of his employer that it would result in the termination of a non-handicapped employee, is not a qualified handicapped person within the meaning of G.L. c. 151B" and fails to make out a prima facie case of discrimination. Once the SJC found that the plaintiff, Michael Mammone’s (Mammone), misconduct evidenced that he could not perform the essential functions of his job, the burden never shifted to Harvard to show that it could not provide him a reasonable accommodation.