Harborview Senior Care Properties to Pay $21,000 to Settle EEOC Disability Suit
Senior Care Properties, Inc., doing business as Harborview Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center, will pay $21,000 and provide other relief to settle a disability discrimination lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced today. The EEOC had charged that a certified nursing assistant with rheumatoid arthritis was denied a reasonable accommodation and then unlawfully fired by the residential rehabilitation facility because of her disability.
According to the EEOC's lawsuit, Senior Care Properties Inc., which operates Harborview Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center in Morehead City, N.C., hired Katrina Friend in 2015. Friend has rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disorder that she managed with prescription medication. Without medication, Friend has difficulty picking up or gripping objects. In July 2015, Friend was unable to fill her prescriptions, as she had not yet received her insurance card from Harborview, and she experienced an arthritis flare-up. By August 2015, Friend resumed her medication regimen and requested four weeks of light duty to allow the medication to take effect. In response, Harborview ignored Friend's light duty request, offered her no other accommodation, and placed Friend on unpaid leave. Although the company had been informed that Friend could return to full duty at the end of the four-week light-duty period, Harborview fired Friend for exceeding the company's maximum two-week leave policy.
Such alleged conduct violates the American with Disabilities Act (ADA), which protects employees from discrimination based on a disability and requires employers to provide disabled employees with reasonable accommodations. The EEOC filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, Western Division (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Senior Care Properties, Inc. d/b/a Harborview Rehabilitation and Healthcare; Civil Action No 4:17-cv-00136-FL) after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its conciliation process.
In addition to the $21,000 in damages, the two-year consent decree settling the suit requires that Senior Care Properties develop a disability accommodation policy. Senior Care Properties must also provide annual training to its managers, supervisors and employees at its Morehead City location on the requirements of the ADA, including reasonable accommodation and its disability accommodation policy. Senior Care Properties will also post an employee notice concerning the lawsuit and employee rights under federal anti-discrimination laws.
"When an employee with a disability notifies his or her employer of the need for a light duty assignment or leave from work for reasons related to the disability, the employer must consider exceptions to light duty and leave policies as a reasonable accommodation," said Lynette A. Barnes, regional attorney for the EEOC's Charlotte District Office. "The ADA requires that employers provide such reasonable accommodation unless it would be an undue hardship to accommodate the employee, which in this case it certainly would not have been."
9th Cir: Catholic School Teacher Fired for Requesting Time for Cancer Treatment May Pursue ADA Discrimination Claim
ReligiousLiberty.TV (blog)
Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the ministerial exception does not bar a teacher at a Catholic school in Torrance, California who was fired because she requested time off work for breast surgery and chemotherapy from pursuing a claim under the Americans with Disability Act.
Group files class-action suit against Uber for ‘discrimination,’ lack of wheelchair access
Disability advocates filed a class-action lawsuit against Uber on Tuesday over the company’s lack of wheelchair-accessible vehicles, alleging it amounts to “illegal discrimination.”
The case was filed in Alameda County Superior Court on behalf of groups across the Bay Area, including the Independent Living Resource Center in San Francisco.
“Uber is such an important transportation option in the Bay Area, and many of our consumers who use wheelchairs are simply excluded from it because Uber has done nothing to make its service accessible to them,” said Jessie Lorenz, executive director of the resource center.
Former employee claims Samaritan Caregivers violated ADA
The Pennsylvania Record
A former employee is suing Samaritan Caregivers LLC, a Pennsylvania corporation, citing alleged disability discrimination, failure to uphold Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations, and retaliation.
Tracey Smallwood filed a complaint on Dec. 6 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania against Samaritan Caregivers LLC, alleging the Pennsylvania corporation breached its duty of good faith and fair dealings.
According to the complaint, the plaintiff alleges that on Aug. 14, 2017, she sustained a work-related injury to her left shoulder during the course and scope of her employment, and was later diagnosed with a torn rotator cuff. However, plaintiff was immediately terminated following her injury and filing a claim for Workers' Compensation benefits, the suit says.
The plaintiff holds Samaritan Caregivers LLC responsible because the defendant allegedly denied plaintiff’s request for reasonable accommodations including light-duty work, and terminated plaintiff for filing a claim for workers' compensation benefits.
The plaintiff requests a trial by jury and seeks judgment against defendant to compensate, reimburse and pay benefits, punitive damages, equitable and legal relief, costs and expenses of action,. She is represented by Christa Levko of Kraemer, Manes & Associates in Philadelphia.
The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania Case No. is 18-cv-02334.
One more “EEOC goes after low hanging fruit” post before the new year!!
Lexology
For anyone just coming upon this blog, I like to highlight a few important trends or repeated fact patterns, such as code words for “old” in age discrimination cases, or the seeming increase in the use of the “N-word” in workplaces.
And one of my favorites is posting about EEOC developments involving disability or pregnancy discrimination claims against health care providers. It has become crystal clear to me that the EEOC targets these folks in particular for such cases because – quite frankly – it is easy poke the “caring profession” for discrimination against people with disabilities or employees who are pregnant, and it’s also good PR.
Such as a new EEOC settlement with a rehab center which allegedly fired an employee with rheumatoid arthritis.
FHCN settles fed lawsuit for $1.75 mil.
Foothills Sun Gazette
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced on Dec. 6 the Visalia-based health care company, which operates 26 health care centers in Tulare, Kings and Fresno Counties, will pay $1.75 million and furnish other relief. EEOC filed the lawsuit after workers alleged there was “a systemic discrimination” against disabiled and pregnant employees. According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, Family HealthCare Network (FHCN) used its rigid leave policies and practices to deny reasonable accommodations to its disabled and/or pregnant employees, refusing to accommodate them with additional leave and firing them when they were unable to return to work at the end of their leave. In some instances, Family HealthCare discharged individuals before they had even exhausted their approved leave and failed to rehire them when they tried to return to work.
Such alleged conduct violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) as well as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA), and Title I of the Civil Rights Act of 1991. The EEOC filed suit in U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of California after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its conciliation process.
Sam Burke: Wrongful termination basics for the 12 days of Christmas
Denton Record Chronicle
No one likes to think about letting employees go or being sued at Christmastime, but everyone loves a Christmas list. So in the hope that form overcomes substance, I bring you this wrongful termination “12 Days of Christmas” list.
Top US Schools Fail to Provide Adequate Mental Health Care for Their Students
Nonprofit Quarterly
As readers may recall, the Ruderman Family Foundation (Ruderman) has played an increasingly critical role in recent years identifying specific barriers to social inclusion faced by people with disabilities. This has led to a series of high profile and well-researched papers that are used by activists in the field to help inform policy change.
The latest Ruderman white paper slams Ivy League universities for their failure to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). One particularly egregious practice involves enforcing leaves of absence for students with mental illness rather than providing these students the support they need to stay in school. The ADA, established in 1990, is a civil rights law that at a minimum prevents discrimination against people with disabilities and at the highest level promotes inclusion. The ADA declared that places open to the public, including universities, must provide reasonable accommodations when requested. Unfortunately, numerous Ivy League students have come forth with stories of their universities not complying with the ADA by forcing involuntary leaves of absence for students experiencing mental health challenges.