DENISE BOSSHARD, Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
HACKENSACK UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER, LISA OLDHAM and DIANE MOSLOWSKI,
Defendants-Respondents.

A-7077-99T5

SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY APPELLATE DIVISION

Submitted October 1, 2001
Decided November 5, 2001

On appeal from Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Bergen County, L-2570-98.

Kenneth W. Herbert and Associates, attorneys for appellant (Dwight D. DeStefan and Mr. Herbert, on the brief).

Grotta, Glassman & Hoffman, attorneys for respondents Hackensack University Medical Center and Lisa Oldham (Daniel A. Tabs, of counsel and on the brief).

Before Judges Braithwaite, Coburn and Weissbard.

The opinion of the court was delivered by COBURN, J.A.D.

Plaintiff, Diane Bosshard, sued her employer, defendant Hackensack University Medical Center (“HUMC”), and two of her supervisors, defendants Lisa Oldham and Diane Moslowski, after she was discharged from employment. Her primary claims were based on the handicap provisions of the Law Against Discrimination (“LAD”), N.J.S.A. 10:5-1 to -42. She alleged that she was unlawfully discharged because of her addiction to heroin, despite her successful completion of a drug rehabilitation program, and because of a hearing impairment, for which no accommodation had been provided. She also asserted that dismissal of a hearing-impaired employee for past addiction to heroin after the employee had successfully completed a drug rehabilitation program violated public policy. Her other claims were: intentional infliction of emotional distress, fraud, and breach of contract. Defendants resisted plaintiff’s legal theories as either unsound or unsupported by evidence and maintained that the case involved nothing more than Bosshard’s dismissal for altering medical records in violation of hospital policy. The Law Division dismissed some counts of the complaint for failure to state a cause of action and granted summary judgment on the rest. Plaintiff appeals.(FN1) We affirm.

I

HUMC, a full-service hospital, hired plaintiff as an at-will employee on June 3, 1996, and assigned her to the non-invasive vascular department, where she worked as a vascular technician under Lisa Oldham, the nurse manager, and Diane Moslowski, the technical supervisor. Her duties included performing non-invasive arterial and venous procedures and interpreting and recording the results, which were then reviewed by a physician. Although she worked primarily with a sonogram to take ultrasounds, she also was required to use a stethoscope or a Doppler for two purposes: to distinguish blood pressure sounds and to hear “bruits” (abnormal sounds heard during diagnostic monitoring of parts of the body).

Plaintiff has a long-standing, bilateral hearing disability, which she addresses by wearing hearing aids in both ears. There is no medical evidence that her aided hearing is less than normal; however, in her opinion, even with the hearing aids, she was unable to use the ordinary stethoscope or the Doppler to properly assess blood pressure and hear bruits.