Crane collapses and ADA

[readingrat]

... or WTF was House doing there?

A/N: I'm posting this here instead of where it logically belongs, because I can control what goes on at my journal, and if need be, I will. You are free to voice your opinions, but be sure to do so in a way that does not belittle other people's opinions or insult them for having whatever opinions they have.

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What was a disabled doctor with a gimp leg and pain issues who has no interest whatsoever in emergency medicine doing at a crane collapse site and crawling through piles of rubble while younger and more able-bodied doctors galore were populating his hospital's ER?

That's the question we've been asking ourselves ever since the episode aired, and it's one that's come up again recently. No one really seems to know the answer to that, and the show doesn't provide one, not even one that'll hold in canon, let alone in RL.

Since canon doesn't provide an answer, let's look at the RL-compatible one that is getting the most approval at present: his boss must be mad. Or a slave driver. Or both. There's definitely something in this. Let's take a closer look, as Dr Nolan would say.

Why is House there in the first place? 

It's never stated explicitly in the show why he turns up at the crane collapse site - Cuddy doesn't demand his presence, and had he not showed up in her office just before leaving for home, he wouldn't even have known about the collapse. It seems that he follows Cuddy out of curiosity; he senses that something is off with her reaction to his house-warming gift, something connected with Lucas, and he follows her hoping to find out what it is. And once he's there, he does a bit of triage. Should Cuddy have sent him back? Well, he isn't there at her bidding, so if he worried about getting hurt or stressing his leg, he shouldn't have come. It's a bit of a debatable point, but so far Cuddy hasn't exerted any pressure to keep him there. She may be somewhat neglecting of his well-being, but given the carnage around her, his gimp leg pales in comparison, and one could argue at a stretch that making a disabled but mentally otherwise fit employee leave after he came voluntarily and is showing a certain willingness to stay could be taken as an affront by him.

He's bored there though - just heaps of people dying of boring injuries - so once he has a patient he wants to take off again to the hospital. But Cuddy demands that he stay, arguing that he's better at triage than anyone else. Which is true - House only just correctly diagnosed a man as a hopeless case, freeing ambulance resources for someone else who will actually benefit from it. So, although Cuddy's demand is potentially damaging to House, it is beneficial to patient care. It's the same situation later, when Cuddy wants House to crawl back through the rubble to Hannah. If she sends someone else, there's a danger of Hannah working herself up into a critical state.

So, we've got House going to the site because of his curiosity (his own choice) and staying there because Cuddy puts patient welfare before employee welfare.

Is that how a responsible employer should act?
I should think not. Employers, even those that work in health care, are primarily responsible for their employees; patients are entitled to everything that is feasible within the limits of employee rights, but not over and beyond that. They are not entitled to their attending's lobe of liver, for instance, no matter how much that attending messed up. Even if House does not wave ADA in Cuddy's face, she has to shrug her shoulders, write off the people House could have saved if he'd stayed to do triage, tell Hannah that she's getting whatever physician is at her disposal and that she'll have to suck it up - since when do people in an emergency situation get to choose their attending? - and send House home. (However, I'd think twice before condemning her for being a crappy employer. You can only afford to do so if you are sure that in her situation you'd act differently: you've got a bright doctor who can, and does, save lives and who isn't complaining about his disability. Would you send him away when you know he isn't going to cut up stiff?)

So, can House sue her?
If I were House's lawyer, I'd advise against it, because I'd be able to predict what Cuddy's lawyer will do. If Cuddy gets sued by House for violating his ADA rights (or whatever they're called), then her lawyer won't hesitate to look at House's record as an employer, and frankly, that won't be pretty. House repeatedly demands that his employees break and enter, which is instigation to a crime, and that in a country where people are allowed to defend themselves by taking out a gun and shooting at whoever is entering their house (which means House is recklessly endangering his team). Even if he doesn't get shot, Foreman is risking a prison sentence because he has a police record already. As for putting employee welfare before patient welfare, there's Last Resort, where House deliberately endangers Thirteen's life, very much against her will, in order not to diagnose his patient. 

House may be able to take Cuddy down, but he'll go down with her. He could, at a stretch, argue that her high-handed way of treating her employees rubbed off on him, but that argument didn't convince me when it was repeatedly applied to a mere fellow, Chase. I doubt it'll convince anyone when the subject of this 'brainwashing' is the head of a department well able to think for himself, not an impressionable young fellow.

Does the fact that House doesn't have a handle on Cuddy in a legal sense make her actions any less objectionable? Not really. I've always been convinced that an action can be morally deplorable even if there is no legal redress to be obtained. In this case, however, there is one circumstance to consider. House is one of the major beneficiaries of Cuddy's disregard for the rules and regulations that govern a work environment. Cuddy knows fully well that he sends his team to b&e, that he palms off clinic hours on them, makes them do overtime when and as it suits him, etc., but she never interferes. If she did - if his team were no longer allowed to break laws - then House the diagnostician would be the person affected most, and a lot more of his patients would die. IMO House chooses to remain at PPTH because unlike New York Mercy, where Foreman does a stint, he has a work environment here that closes its eyes to legal niceties that stand in the way of patient care. You can't have your cake and eat it - if House or his fans want to take the high ground on employees with disabilities in order to enforce his rights, it could well be that someone gets the idea that his employees are also entitled to have their rights enforced. And that won't work well for House.