An employee who says “I’m not disabled” can’t turn around and sue for failure to accommodate a disability. The Sixth Circuit just confirmed that’s true even when the employer is the one who raised the disability question in the first place.
According to the EEOC, a waste management company hadn’t hired a female garbage truck driver in years, and its interviews showed why: a manager told one qualified female applicant to think carefully, talk to her husband, and let him know if she still wanted the job. She did. The company hired a man. The case settled for $200,000.
A blind customer care advocate asked for screen reading software. According to the EEOC, his employer tested two products, decided the software wasn’t compatible, turned down a free offer from a state agency to help, and terminated him. That sequence cost $270,000.
According to the EEOC, the company’s own doctors cleared two employees as fit for duty. The employer allegedly refused to let them return anyway, unless they switched the medications treating their disabilities. That decision cost $300,000.
The employer granted a dispatcher’s telework accommodation, watched her work successfully from home for nearly three years, then yanked it without ever talking to her according to the EEOC. That sequence cost $280,000.
According to the EEOC, a $2 billion company said it couldn’t afford $1,700 hearing protection for an employee losing her hearing on the job. A federal lawsuit and a $100,000 settlement later, that calculus looks different.
She showed up to work one morning, scanned her badge, and nothing happened. That’s allegedly how a 10-year employee learned she’d been fired while undergoing chemotherapy. Continue reading
Three administrations, multiple rules, and still no settled federal standard on joint employment. The DOL’s new proposed rule is the latest attempt to end that uncertainty.
A law firm partner apparently missed every harassment training ever offered and made a comment that belongs in a museum of worst-possible workplace decisions. The firm’s response, though, was textbook. The case got dismissed.
The termination decision-maker didn’t know about the complaint. That gap cost the employee everything.
The Employer Handbook Blog