That’s how I start my next oral argument when defending a claim made under the Americans with Disabilities that one of my employer clients regarded an overweight plaintiff as disabled. So, who wants some of what I’m drinking today? Hey, it’s peppermint tea, jerk! And I’m not pulling this blog…
Articles Posted in Disability
Does the ADA require accommodating a graveyard shift employee with insomnia?
Let’s assume that you run a factory in which employees are scheduled on one of two shifts: (1) 6:00 AM – 6:00 PM; or (2) 6:00 PM to 6:00 AM. One of your employees comes to you with a doctor’s note which states that working the graveyard shift will cause…
FACT OR FICTION: A temporary disability may be an ADA disability
That’s right folks. It’s time for another edition of “Fact or Fiction” a/k/a “Quick Answers to Quick Questions” a/k/a QATQQ f/k/a “I don’t feel like writing a long blog post.” Let’s assume that your employee breaks his leg. Doctors tell your employee that he won’t walk normally for seven months.…
ADA leave requests may be verbal or written, just not telepathic
Sorry, Aquaman. You’re SOL, son. But Aquaman does love to get down to MGMT, I’m told. So here you go… Same goes for the plaintiff in this case — the telepathy part, not MGMT — in which the employer had a leave policy which dictated that employees may take up to six…
The most clicked, hella-best HR-compliance updates from 2013!!!
Ah, it was a good year at the ole Handbook. Total web traffic was up over fifty percent from 2012. And average time per visit was down over 20%, which is fine by me. I pad my important stats, while discouraging loitering. And we got our first visitor from Uzbekistan.…
Telling an employee her “big fat ass needs to concentrate on losing weight” is not discrimination
Let’s talk (alleged) big butts and discrimination after the jump… (Sir Mix-a-Lot is gonna be feelin’ this post). * * * Hey yo! Find me another employment-law blogger spinning Sir Mix-a-Lot. Yeah, that’s what I thought. So, show me some love, take a few seconds, and vote for The Employer Handbook…
Must an employer ask if a disability is causing poor job performance?
You’ve got an employee with performance issues. Big time! Initially, rather than fire her, you make fun of her behind her back put her on a series of performance improvement plans. But, that doesn’t result in — oh, what’s the word I’m looking for? — improvement. So, you fire…
Pregnancy isn’t a workplace disability, but how about morning sickness?
An employee-plaintiff who claims that she was discriminated against under the Americans with Disabilities Act due to her pregnancy alone, will lose her ADA claim 10 times out of 10. This is because pregnancy is not a disability under the ADA. But what if that same employee plaintiff with an…
Welcome to the Employment Law Blog Carnival: Hollywood Villains Edition
Welcome everyone to the Employment Law Blog Carnival. What you’ll find after the jump is the best, recent posts from around the employment-law blogosphere all organized around a common theme. So, yeah, we need a theme. [Lousy blog rules] Two years ago, we spun some tunes with the “Employment Law…
The ADA still requires a plaintiff to show that he has a “disability”
When the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act (“ADAAA”) went into effect on January 1, 2009, the changes to the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) emphasized construing the definition of “disability” to provide broad coverage of individuals to the maximum extent permitted by the terms of the ADA. In other…