Consent Decree: Renaissance Mobile Battle House Hotel and Spa | Complaint
Wal-Mart Stores East Will Pay $72,500 to Settle EEOC Disability Discrimination Lawsuit
According to the EEOC's suit, an assistant store manager at the Walmart store in Cockeysville, Md., offered Laura Jones a job as an evening sales associate, contingent on Jones passing a urinalysis test for illegal drugs. After Jones advised that she cannot produce urine because she has end-stage renal disease, the assistant store manager told her to ask the designated drug testing company about alternate tests, the EEOC said. According to the complaint, Jones went to the drug testing facility the same day and learned that the facility could do other drug tests if the employer requested it. Jones relayed this information to the Walmart assistant store manager, but management refused to order an alternative drug test. Jones's application was closed for failing to take a urinalysis within 24 hours.
Jury Finds In Favor Of EEOC That One-Armed Security Guard Was Fired Because Of His Disability
The EEOC's lawsuit charged Florida Commercial Security Services with disability discrimination when it removed Alberto Tarud-Saieh, who had who lost his right arm in a car accident, from his $8-an-hour security guard position after the president of the community association where he was stationed complained, "The company is a joke. You sent me a one-armed security guard." The EEOC said the company removed Tarud-Saieh from his post and failed to reassign him to another post, effectively terminating his employment.
Seizure disorder raises safety issue: Can we fire?
Business Management Daily
Q. A new employee just told us she has a seizure disorder. Our facility works with vulnerable adults and the new employee would be required to drive them. This poses a risk potential for the client’s safety. Can we terminate this person or do we need to figure out an accommodation? The employee hasn’t asked for any yet. — Martin, Minnesota
A. Although the ADA protects individuals with disabilities from discrimination, it does not require you to employ someone in a position in which his or her health condition would pose a direct threat to the safety of that person or any others. While it sounds like the seizure disorder might pose a direct threat, in my experience individuals with seizure disorders are not granted drivers’ licenses unless they have the condition well under control for a period of months or years. Nevertheless, you would be wise to ask this person to submit to a fitness-for-duty evaluation to ensure that she is, in fact, stable with the condition, has been granted driving privileges, etc.
Even so, the risk of a seizure while caring for vulnerable adults may be too great to permit you to employ this person in a position of responsibility. A frank discussion is going to be necessary to determine if you can accommodate this person’s condition. If the employee won’t cooperate, you may have to end his or her employment.
Woman files another class action lawsuit alleging ADA violations
Legal News Line
A woman who has filed at least eight class action lawsuits alleging violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act has filed a new lawsuit against Kohl's.
Sarah Heinzl has a mobility disability and is dependent upon a wheelchair, according to a complaint filed Oct. 6 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.
The Scope of the ADA's Special Products Exception
Corporate Counsel
Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12181-12189 (ADA or Title III) prohibits retailers and other businesses that transact business with the public from "discriminating" against individuals with disabilities. The statute is broadly worded to prohibit a wide range of discriminatory practices, and has been the subject of literally thousands of individual and class action lawsuits seeking to change how the business community deals with individuals with disabilities. Congress enacted the ADA "to remedy widespread discrimination against disabled individuals." PGA Tour, Inc. v. Martin, 532 U.S. 661, 674 (2001). The salutary effect of the ADA cannot be understated. However, many business owners and operators might, at the same time, rightly ask whether there are any limits to the Act's reach. Jancik v. Redbox Automated Retail, LLC, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 67223 (May 14, 2014) explores one such limit — the so-called "special products exception."
Read more: http://www.corpcounsel.com/id=1202673921959/The-Scope-of-the-ADAs-Special-Products-Exception#ixzz3H6MEs9O9
Lawsuit: Colorado deaf patient denied interpreter at Rose ER
The Denver Post
Two men who are deaf have sued Rose Medical Center, claiming the hospital failed to provide them with a method of effective communication during emergency visits, as required under federal law.
How can employers prevent FMLA lawsuits?
HR.BLR.com
Last year saw the 20th anniversary of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), and the Department of Labor (DOL) celebrated the anniversary with a report that cited the positive impact that the FMLA has had over the course of its first two decades. What is astonishing to read in that survey, is that “most employers” reported that they have had “little to no negative impact” from the implementation of the FMLA.
Overweight Women Face Big Challenges at Work
Business News Daily
Being overweight in the workplace is tougher on women than on men, new research finds.
Overweight women are more likely to make less money, work in more physically demanding jobs, and have less interaction with customers than average-size women and all men, including those who are also overweight, according to a Vanderbilt University study.
Brown Political Review
Long lines, shoddy preparations and incomprehensible rules: The US voting process is marred by these well-documented problems. But these barriers are just the beginning for minority groups like the blind and visually impaired. Individuals with visual impairments often find typical ballots — electronic or otherwise — inaccessible. For these citizens, exercising their right to vote remains difficult, if not impossible. In some cases, even the way they are given assistance compromises confidentiality. Worse, the American public largely neglects these issues.
Ebola update: CDC to implement post-travel monitoring program
Lexology
On October 22, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a press release indicating that, effective Monday, October 27, a new program will be in place through which federal and state health authorities will monitor— for a period of 21 days—all travelers returning from the West African countries affected by Ebola. This active post-arrival monitoring program “is an approach in which state and local health officials maintain daily contact with all travelers from the three affected countries for the entire 21 days following their last possible date of exposure to Ebola virus.” The CDC will provide travelers whose travel originates in Liberia, Sierra Leone, or Guinea with a kit upon arrival to the United States that contains a thermometer, education materials, a symptom log, and health authority contact information.
According to the CDC press release,
state and local authorities will require travelers to report the following information daily: their temperature and the presence or absence of other Ebola symptoms such as headache, joint and muscle aches, weakness, diarrhea, vomiting, stomach pain, lack of appetite, or abnormal bleeding; and their intent to travel in-state or out-of-state. In the event a traveler does not report in, state or local public health officials will take immediate steps to locate the individual to ensure that active monitoring continues on a daily basis.
Further, if a traveler begins to show symptoms, “public health officials will implement an isolation and evaluation plan following appropriate protocols to limit exposure, and direct the individual to a local hospital that has been trained to receive potential Ebola patients.” More information on this program can be found on the CDC website.
Practical Impact for Employers
This new development will be a factor for employers when utilizing the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) direct threat analysis to determine whether to keep employees out of the workplace or require a medical examination when they return from travel to West Africa. In particular, it will likely be more difficult for an employer to justify excluding an asymptomatic employee from the workplace based solely on travel to the affected West African countries. This is because health authorities will now be actively monitoring these individuals on a daily basis. Unless the individual is placed into quarantine by health authorities or instructed to stay home, or other risk factors are present, the employee presumptively remains safe to return to work during the 21-day period under existing CDC guidelines. Still, employers should continue to evaluate each employee’s situation individually to determine the appropriate response based on the objective facts and the latest CDC guidance.
At the same time, however, this new active monitoring program provides an opportunity to reassure employees that travelers are being closely monitored upon their return to the country—thereby decreasing the likelihood of an Ebola exposure in the workplace.