An excellent teacher with a progressive disability wanted paid leave to get a guide dog. Her employer offered unpaid leave instead. A federal appeals court just said that was enough.
A cocktail server with a foot disability wore Skechers sneakers for two years under an accommodation her employer granted. When new management decided sneakers didn’t meet appearance standards, the employer narrowed the accommodation and eventually terminated her for refusing to comply. Most of the lawsuit went with her.
COVID-era telework was an emergency exception. Courts aren’t treating it as a permanent rewrite of job requirements.
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.
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
An employee told Social Security it was “impossible” for him to work, then filed an ADA lawsuit claiming he could perform his job with accommodations. The court tossed it on summary judgment. Continue reading
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