ADA in the News August 26, 2020

Employee’s disability doesn’t shield her from termination

An employer did not discriminate against an employee by firing her for misconduct she attributed to post-traumatic stress disorder, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.

Plaintiff Kirstie Trahan allegedly referred to certain co-workers as “bitches” on more than one occasion, threw her headset, slammed her phone down before walking off, and engaged in other behavior that violated her employer’s rules of conduct.

When Trahan learned her employer, defendant Wayfair Maine, planned to terminate her, she disclosed for the first time that she was a veteran with PTSD. She further claimed that mistreatment by co-workers triggered her condition and caused her outbursts.

Trahan asked either to be moved or to telecommute, but the employer denied her request and terminated her the next day.

The plaintiff argued that Wayfair violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by failing to accommodate her condition.

But the 1st Circuit disagreed, affirming a U.S. District Court judge’s summary judgment for Wayfair.

“Trahan made both of the proposals that she seeks to classify as accommodation requests after committing the fireable misconduct that prompted her discharge,” Senior Judge Bruce M. Selya wrote for the court. “Where, as here, an accommodation request follows fireable misconduct, it ordinarily should not be viewed as an accommodation proposal at all.”

The 1st Circuit also rejected Trahan’s claim that the employer punished her more severely than non-disabled employees, finding that comparator evidence she provided did not resemble her own situation.

The 28-page decision is Trahan v. Wayfair Maine, LLC.

As restaurants take over sidewalks to provide pandemic-safe dining, people with disabilities encounter barriers.

When New York began allowing outdoor activities in June, Emily Ladau, 29, ventured out in her Long Island town of West Babylon after long months of staying inside because of the novel coronavirus. But her moment in the sun was marred — as a wheelchair user, she found that restaurants spilling over onto the sidewalk blocked her path.

“Throughout the whole main street,” of nearby Bay Shore, she says, “I couldn’t be on the sidewalk at all.”

Many restaurants have added sidewalk seating during the pandemic to take advantage of the open air when indoor dining is considered risky because of less ventilation and difficulty in following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines to keep people at least six feet apart.

Robots, lampshades and mannequins: How restaurants around the world are adapting to the coronavirus

Doing so, however, may put up barriers for people with disabilities and come into conflict with the Americans With Disabilities Act. The ADA requires that sidewalk width must be a minimum of 36 inches for wheelchair access.

Judge Denies Town of Enfield's Motion to Dismiss ADA Lawsuit

A former member of the Board of Education has sued the board, the Town of Enfield and board chairman Walter Kruzel for violating ADA laws.

Covid Reminds Us That Web Accessibility Helps All Users, Not Just The Disabled

Back in the early days of the internet, when having a computer at home usually meant a single room with a bulky desktop tower, web accessibility was barely a thought for those in the IT industry, let alone an afterthought.

As the early 2000s wore on, third party software manufacturers began to develop bespoke desktop access solutions, often at a hefty mark-up.

The “Mobile First” digital landscape, which was to emerge a decade or so later, changed the game forever.

Suddenly, using their smartphones out and about, “ordinary” able-bodied folks found themselves plunged into situations that temporarily mirrored those routinely experienced by disabled people.

The classic example usually offered up is that of a sighted person viewing their smartphone screen on a bright sunny day. Mobile website and app developers were compelled to start thinking about high contrast fonts and size adjustments, not as something limited to the requirements of those with low vision, but as a core aspect of usability and universal design.

Fast-forward to 2020 — and the coronavirus pandemic looks set to have an equally impactful effect in demonstrating that websites and apps that are coded appropriately for individuals with disabilities, actually benefit a far wider segment of the population than one might imagine.

That’s not to mention the myriad of across the board wins and business advantages it brings to organizations who take it seriously.

Even when viewed in a silo, the potential size of the disabled market is certainly not to be sniffed at, with one in four adults in the United States living with some form of disability, be it visual, hearing, mobility or cognitive in nature.

Nevertheless, a model that divvies up the population in this way, or fails to appreciate the sizable overlap between accessibility and general usability is backward, arcane and entirely inappropriate for the post-pandemic world.

COVID-19 Poses New Challenges For Disabled College Students

Depending on their access needs,

they have both benefitted and struggled because of the rise of virtual life in the time of the coronavirus.

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