Man Fired for Visiting Internet Sex Sites While at Work Sues, Claims Sex Addiction is Disability that Makes Him Unfireable Under ADA   2/22/2007 - 4,333 views, 4 Comments

James Pacenza, of Montgomery, New York, in a $5 million lawsuit against IBM, alleges that IBM improperly fired him, claiming that the firing was improper because his actions were the result of a sex addiction triggered, he says, by post-traumatic stress syndrome. 58-year old James Pacenza is a Vietnam war veteran, who says that seeing his fellow soldiers killed in action lead to a stress which in turn lead to his sex addiction. Pacenza asserts in his lawsuit that the stress turned him into “a sex addict, and with the development of the Internet, an Internet addict.” As such, says Pacenza, he is entitled to protection under the ADA.

IBM fired Pacenza nearly four years ago, after finding that Pacenza had logged into an Internet chat room geared towards adult, and sex-related, chat. Pacenza had that day visited a Vietnam memorial and that was the reason, he claims, that he visited the adult chat site. “I was tempting myself to perhaps become involved in some titillating conversation,” he admits. Pacenza was called away from his workstation and another employee, while walking by, caught a glimpse of some conversation on the screen including, say reports, “a vulgar reference to a sexual act.” A report was made, and Pacenza was fire.

Pacenza admits that he logged into the chat room, but says that he did not take part in any chat himself (presumably because he got called away before he had a chance). His lawyer says that he never visited any pornographic websites while at work.

Because he is a diagnosed sex addict, Pacenza claims, IBM did wrong to fire him - they should have offered him a treatment program. Besides, he points out, when IBM discovered a couple having sex on a desk at work, all they did was transfer them, yet for surfing adult sites he was fired. This, he says, is evidence of discrimination of the sort which, he asserts, is barred by the ADA.

Adds Pacenza’s lawyer, “A military combat veteran, if anyone, should be afforded a second chance, the benefit of doubt and afforded reasonable accommodation for combat-related disability.”