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Articles Posted in Disability

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How could dementia not be covered under the FMLA? (Psst, I’ll tell you how).

  The Family and Medical Leave Act allows eligible employees to take up to 12 weeks of leave in a 12-month period for, among other reasons, to care for a parent with a serious health condition. Most FMLA serious health conditions are plainly obvious: Cancer, HIV, dementia. But, then again… The…

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A message from Stevie Wonder on providing accommodations to individuals with disabilities

Watch this video of Stevie Wonder at the Grammy’s. Ignore the tragic wardrobe selection. Instead, listen to the message about increasing accessibility to people with disabilities, and make sure that it carries over into your workplace. Remember it before… Your company insists that a job candidate with renal disease must…

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New EEOC statistics highlight the importance of disability accommodations at work

Yesterday, the EEOC released its FY2015 Enforcement and Litigation Data. Consistent with prior years, claims of retaliation continue to dominate (44.5% of all claims filed with the EEOC). Race is second (34.7%). But, it’s disability discrimination — up a whopping 6% from 2014 — that should have your attention. What’s driving this…

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What caused this employee to claim disability discrimination on her second day of work?

  When was the last time that you trained your managers and supervisors on how to address disability accommodation requests? Or, how about the last time that you reminded your supervisors and managers that an employee with a disability needs to be treated respectfully? If it’s been a while (or, maybe, I dunno, forever),…

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When must companies accommodate employee medical marijuana use? How about never?

I’ve blogged (here) that grilling a medical marijuana user about her disability, just before firing the employee, could give rise to a viable disability-discrimination claim. In other words, where the disability (as opposed to the medical marijuana use) motivates the employment action, that’s discrimination. I’ve blogged before (here) that the Americans with…

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A jury will decide whether a quadriplegic welder will win his disability discrimination claim

Yeah, I thought you’d click on this one. From the blog that brought you the Americans with Disabilities Act claims of the bridge worker with a fear of heights, the firefighter afraid of fighting fires, and the utility person who could climb utility poles, comes the quadriplegic welder and his claims of disability…

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Don’t let ADA stereotypes do to you what they did to this company

There are certain stereotypes that accurately reflect an image held in common for members of a group. For example, employment-law bloggers who practice law in Philadelphia and blog from their bloggerdomes in Southern New Jersey are generally handsome, erudite, and more appealing than a hipster drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon at a beard…

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Did USC’s alcohol-related firing of its former head football coach violate the law?

Back in October, the University of Southern California fired Steve Sarkisian, its head football coach. The Daily Beast, among others, reported that USC fired Mr. Sarkisian after an incident where he appeared drunk during a speech at a USC event. Yesterday, Mr. Sarkisian fired back with a 14-count lawsuit in California Superior…