Imagine, if you will, that two years ago you hired Amanda Bynes to be your Social Media Manager. Things are going pretty smoothly, until your customers begin complaining that company’s Twitter feed has gone from informative and witty to curious and more-or-less bizarre. After reviewing the tweets for yourself, you…
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.” Today, I’m speaking at the EEOC EXCEL Conference in Denver, CO. It’s an incredible honor, given that this is the…
A few years back, I sent in a Breaking Bad script to Vince Gilligan. At the time, I was concerned that the show was becoming too one-dimensional. High school teacher becomes meth kingpin. Yeah, I guess that could make for some good television — if you like taut, well-written, well-acted…
Well, if it means that the employee diagnosed with anxiety and depression — the one who requested a reasonable accommodation to perform her job — gets fired. Well, then, a lot. That’s basically what happened in this recent federal court case out of Kentucky. You see, normally, a court won’t…
Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, an employer must make reasonable accommodation to the known physical or mental limitations of an individual unless the employer can show that doing so how cause it undue hardship. Generally, an employee will initiate the process by advising her employer that she is disabled…
When the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act went into effect in 2009, it significantly lowered the bar for proving a “disability.” How low did it go? [cue ironic music, you’ll see in a sec…] You’ll see how low when your employee — like you and I — suffers from “episodic” (that’s…
That George Costanza was definitely on to something. A federal court in Virginia (here) recently denied an employer’s attempt to dismiss the complaint of a former employee who claimed that his rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act were violated when his employer failed to accommodate him by waking him…
In mid-June, the American Medical Association concluded that obesity is a disease “requiring a range of medical interventions to advance obesity treatment and prevention.” This news led Jon Hyman at the Ohio Employer’s Law Blog to conclude that classification of obesity as a “disease” has huge employment law implications;…
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) limits when an employer can require an employee to take a medical examination. Specifically, the ADA forbids employers from requiring medical exams (and cannot otherwise inquire into the nature or severity of a disability) unless the exam or inquiry is shown to be “job-related…
Barbara Joy McElmurry worked for the Arizona Department of Agriculture. In a Complaint she filed in federal court, she alleged that her supervisor forced her into a field work position in which she would not be able to drive vehicles because she was too short (4’10”). So, McElmurry asserted a…