Best Practices Report: DFEH v. LSAC | PDF
Settlement Agreement:
- Rainforest Café
- City of DeKalb, Illinois
- City of Fallon, Nevada
- City of Isle of Palms, South Carolina
- City of Vero Beach, Florida
Letter of Findings: DOJ/HHS Joint Letter to Massachusetts Department of Children and Families | PDF
Tell bosses: Don't query medical appointments
Business Management Daily
Warn supervisors that they shouldn’t comment on the time that employees take off for medical treatments. If the underlying medical condition is a disability under the ADA, such comments may come back later to haunt the employer.
Consider, for example, the decision to lay off poor performers. If a supervisor who recommends employees for termination made earlier comments about time off, those comments can be used to prove that the employee was picked because of her disability.
Recent case: Tanya worked at a charity’s retail store. After she was involved in an accident that injured her hand and arm, she began taking time off for medical appointments and physical therapy. Her boss told her that she was “jeopardizing her job by taking off.” He frequently asked whether an appointment was “really” necessary.
Six months later, when the physical therapy failed to improve her condition, Tanya took FMLA leave for carpal tunnel surgery.
During the leave, she was then called in and told she had been terminated. The same supervisor who had warned her about missing work six months earlier decided which employees would lose their jobs.
Tanya sued, alleging disability discrimination. She argued that her arm caused pain and limited her ability to care for herself, making her disabled under the ADA.
The court agreed and ordered a trial. She can use her supervisor’s comments as evidence of discrimination. (Jacobs v. York Union Rescue Mission, et al., No. 1-12-CV-0288, MD PA, 2014)
Final note: Don’t criticize employees for taking time off for medical treatment if the underlying condition either qualifies as a disability or is a serious health condition under the FMLA. Remember, FMLA leave is an entitlement for eligible employees, and medical treatment time off is a reasonable accommodation under the ADA.
Winfield woman suing Ark City businesses for ADA noncompliance
Winfield Daily Courier Online
A Winfield woman has filed lawsuits against the owners of six Arkansas City properties where businesses are located, citing Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) violations at each of the businesses.
Lawsuit against economic development organization gets trial date
WKZO
A wrongful termination lawsuit against the southwestern Michigan economic development organization Cornerstone Alliance is headed to trial in November 2015 in federal court in Grand Rapids.
Reyna Price of Coloma filed the lawsuit in August 2014, alleging the economic development organization discriminated against her because of time she needed to care for her disabled seven-year-old daughter. She sued on the grounds that her firing violates the Americans With Disabilities Act.
Cornerstone argues that the organization is not an "employer" as defined by the ADA, and they had legitimate reasons for the dismissal.
Interactive Process Requirement and 'Reasonable Accommodations'
New York Law Journal
In employment discrimination law, whether under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) or state and local human rights laws, employers are prohibited from discriminating against employees with disabilities. One form of disability discrimination is "not making reasonable accommodations to the known physical or mental limitations of an otherwise qualified employee with a disability" unless those accommodations would impose an undue hardship on the operation of the business of the employer.1 But how does an employer determine the employee's particular limitations? What would reasonably accommodate the employee's limitations without imposing an undue hardship on the company's operations?
New York courts require the employer to initiate and engage in a dialogue with the employee, called an interactive process, the simple step of getting together to discuss the individual's disability and a reasonable accommodation of his or her disability. A year ago, in Jacobsen v. New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, 22 N.Y.3d 824, 988 N.Y.S.2d 86 (2014), the New York Court of Appeals clarified an employer's liability when it has failed to engage in an interactive process with its employee in cases brought under the New York State Human Rights Law, resolving a conflict among the intermediate appellate courts. This article reviews that holding and surveys other significant lines of cases where the interactive process has been at issue.
EEOC Joins Federal Partners to Produce Resource Guide for Employers
On Tuesday, Feb. 3, at a Summit on Disability and Employment, the White House announced a new guide for employers that compiles key federal and federally funded resources related to the employment of people with disabilities. The resource guide, Recruiting, Hiring, Retaining, and Promoting People with Disabilities, provides employers with plain language technical assistance tools in an easy-to-use question-and-answer format. The guide was produced by the Curb Cuts to the Middle Class Initiative -- a federal interagency effort working to increase equal employment opportunities and financial independence for people with disabilities.
Marianas Variety
UNDER Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act, it is unlawful for an employer to make inquiries as to whether an applicant is an individual with a disability or as to the nature of such disability before making a conditional offer of employment. 42 U.S.C. § 12112(d); 29 C.F.R. § 1630.13(a).
On February 3, 2015, the United States Department of Justice posted four settlement agreements with cities that had asked questions which were illegal under the ADA. The DOJ alleged that each of the cities had “engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination under the ADA by requiring applicants to disclose disabilities and/or medical information in their application prior to making a conditional offer of employment.”
Eight plaintiffs filing 61 percent of Americans with Disabilities Act in Pennsylvania
Legal News Line
Two law firms and eight individuals are filing the bulk of lawsuits that allege the premises of businesses in Pennsylvania are not in compliance with a federal disabilities law.
A search conducted by the Pennsylvania Record of non-employment lawsuits filed under the Americans with Disabilities Act revealed that eight individuals, represented by two different Pennsylvania firms, filed 61 percent of 290 cases in a two-and-a-half-year span that concluded at the end of 2014.
Judge: California Violated ADA by Segregating Disabled Prisoners
The Nonprofit Quarterly
A federal judge in Oakland, currently addressing a 20-year class action suit concerning the care of prisoners with disabilities, has ordered California to stop placing disabled inmates in solitary confinement units segregated from the general population.
The class action against the state cites the troubling yet all too common practice of overusing solitary confinement, often as a form of punishment. Judge Claudia Wilken said that by continuing to segregate the disabled inmates, the state violated the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prevents discrimination based on a disability, as well as several court orders.
Man files ADA lawsuits against 24 Northeast Florida hotels
ActionNewsJax.com
Many hotels in Northeast Florida, a total of 24, have been slapped with lawsuits alleging discrimination against people with disabilities and all the lawsuits have one thing in common -- Howard Cohan.Cohan’s name appears as the plaintiff in all of the federal lawsuits Action News pulled Wednesday. He alleges hotels like the Fairfield Inn & Suites Jacksonville Airport and Crowne Plaza Jacksonville Airport on Duval Road are not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Inaccessible housing: The long wait for those with physical disabilities to find a home
Innovation Trail