The biggest impact on employers, when the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act took effect on January 1, 2009, was to downplay whether an employee actually had a disability, and get businesses focusing more on whether there existing a reasonable accommodation that would permit an employee to perform the essential functions…
Not cool, dude. Hatter v. WMATA (opinion here) involves an individual with sleep apnea who applied for a bus driver position. He got the job conditionally, but later had the offer rescinded. What happened?!? Well, the offer was rescinded because the plaintiff chose not to submit sleep apnea test results to…
A few months ago, I was waxing poetic about plutonium, how to establish essential job functions, and quality-testing diet scrapple. What got into me? Now, I’ve got a cautionary tale, in the form of a recent federal court opinion, to help you good folks navigate away from some of the…
By Versageek (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia CommonsAlcoholism can be a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The EEOC notes here that the ADA may protect a “qualified” alcoholic who can meet the definition of “disability.” What is a “qualified” alcoholic? Someone who can perform…
No, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals didn’t say, “Oh, word?” But, it did just toss a $2,600,000 jury award in favor of a pharmacist in an Americans With Disabilities Act case. From $2.6M to zero That’s zero point zero. In Stevens v. Rite Aid Corp. (opinion here), a pharmacist…
Who knew? I received a lot of feedback on last week’s post. That was the one about an EEOC lawsuit alleging that a company violated the Americans with Disabilities Act when it allegedly failed to accommodate a disabled employee’s request to use a service dog. Among the reader feedback was a question about…
But, will the EEOC’s bark be louder than its bite? I’ll discuss service animals and Americans with Disabilities Act accommodations after the jump… Let’s cue up the music, while you read from the EEOC’s press release about this new Americans with Disabilities Act lawsuit: According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, Leon Laferriere applied for…
Are you headed to Washington, DC for SHRM’s 2017 Employment Law and Legislative Conference on March 13-15? I’d love to meet up with you. Well, unless you’re really creepy. Forget about trying to grab me after my ADA/FMLA session. You’ll be one of dozens of HR professionals sprinting to the front of…
Here’s a snippet from a recent EEOC press release: The [Americans with Disabilities Act] protects employees from discrimination based on their disabilities and requires employers to make reasonable accommodations to employees’ and applicants’ disabilities as long as it does not pose an undue hardship. That’s employees and applicants. And, that’s important.…
Welcome to Jungle, baby. (Best $24 I’ve ever spent. Probably.) Yesterday, I foreshadowed a blog post about actual legal stuff. Employment-legal stuff, even. ***lighters up*** These five words I swear to you. [cue music] The “D” in ADA. Today, I’m going to talk about the Americans with Disabilities Act. Since…