Letter of Findings: Amtrak | PDF
JD Supra
In Noll v. Int’l Bus. Machs. Corp., 13-cv-4096 (2d Cir May 21, 2015), the Second Circuit Court of Appeals addressed the extent to which, under the ADA and New York State law, an employee must be provided with the precise accommodation he or she requests and whether, if the employer offers a different type of accommodation, its failure to engage in a further interactive process suffices to establish a disability discrimination claim. In Noll, the Court found the employer (IBM) did not have a duty to provide the most effective accommodation, but rather simply an effective one, and, given that it offered a reasonable accommodation, did not have a duty to engage in a further interactive process.
Rodriguez v. Village Green Realty, Inc., 13-4792-cv
New York Law Journal
Plaintiffs-Appellants Heidi and Juan Rodriguez, parents of minor child A.R., brought suit for disability discrimination under the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. §3601 et seq. ("FHA"), against Defendants-Appellees Village Green Realty, Inc., a real estate agency, and Blanca Aponte, its agent. The plaintiffs allege, inter alia, that the defendants (1) made housing unavailable on the basis of disability in violation of 42 U.S.C. §3604(f)(1); (2) provided different terms, conditions, and privileges of rental housing on the basis of disability in violation of 42 U.S.C. §3604(f)(2); (3) expressed a preference on the basis of disability in violation of 42 U.S.C. §3604(c); and (4) misrepresented the availability of rental housing on the basis of disability in violation of 42 U.S.C. §3604(d). The United States District Court for the Northern District of New York (McAvoy, J.) granted summary judgment for the defendants on these claims. This appeal followed.
Mental Stability At Work: an Assessment
New York Law Journal
Mental stability is a term that defies simple definition. That should come as no surprise, given that the latest edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders identifies approximately 300 different psychiatric diagnoses. Nor is the presence of mental stability, or mental illness, susceptible to a single objective test. Rather, mental health professionals apply their clinical expertise and a wide variety of objective measures to assess and diagnose individuals.
Courts consider the ADA and work- related phobias with varying results
Inside Tucson Business
Employees who have phobias can sometimes find protection under the Americans with Disabilities Act. However, as is often the case, whether the ADA’s protections apply depends largely on the specifics of each situation.
ACLU, woman sue Posey trustee over drug-testing rule
Evansville Courier & Press
A Posey County, Indiana woman has filed a federal lawsuit over a township requirement that people seeking public assistance be tested for drugs.
EEOC, court flip flops reveal challenges to employers facing accommodation requests
Employee Benefit News
If even the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the courts cannot agree how far the Americans with Disabilities Act’s (ADA) accommodation obligation extends, how is an employer supposed to do so?
Mt. Vernon Register-News
A tour of the Aquatic Zoo by the Americans with Disabilities Act department of the Illinois Attorney General's office found compliance issues, which will be fixed by the architect and the construction company.
Lexology
… that an employer is not required to accommodate an employee’s absences to care for a disabled family member? Golfin v. Alorica, Inc. (M.D. Fla. April 23, 2015). An employee’s daughter had a disability as defined under the ADA. The employee requested scheduling accommodations in order to care for her daughter, which the employer determined it was unable to provide. Ultimately, the employee quit and claimed that she was constructively discharged. The employee alleged that the employer’s lack of accommodation violated the ADA. In granting the employer’s motion to dismiss, the Court stated that “requesting a reasonable accommodation for her daughter’s disability” does not necessarily amount to disability discrimination under the ADA, as the ADA does not require reasonable accommodation to care for a family member. The employee argued that the employer’s denial of her request was “associational discrimination” under the ADA—an employer may not discriminate against an individual because of an associational relationship with someone with a disability. The associational prohibition on discrimination, however, does not require an employer to reasonably accommodate the disability of the non-employee.
Honesty is not the best policy, according to the EEOC
Lexology
Benjamin Franklin’s “honesty is the best policy” has endured for nearly three centuries, except apparently at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. EEOC v. Aurora Health Care, Inc. (E.D. Wis. May 14, 2015). The challenge to Mr. Franklin’s wisdom and a widespread employer practice arose when an applicant for a hospice care coordinator position failed to respond truthfully to a post-conditional offer medical questionnaire, which resulted in the employer withdrawing its offer.
News-Medical.ne
Among applicants to U.S. medical schools, those with disabilities who obtained extra test administration time for the Medical College Admission Test in use from 1991 to January 2015 had no significant difference in rate of medical school admission but had lower rates of passing the United States Medical Licensing Examination Step examinations and of medical school graduation, according to a study in the June 9 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Hotels.com Ad Caters to Hearing Impaired
TravelPulse
Facebook’s policy that ads on its pages must be physically unmuted by the user to play sound has led to some innovative thinking from companies.
But Hotels.com has taken it one step farther.
Hotels.com recently came out with an ad sporting its mascot Captain Obvious that not only uses subtitles, but also features an ASL (American Sign Language) interpreter for the hearing impaired.