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The Employer Handbook Blog
Articles Posted in Disability
Was COVID-19 a disability for this plaintiff? How about you be the judge today?
Fortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic is waning. Yet, past workplace incidents are now surfacing in court as COVID-19 discrimination lawsuits. A common thread with many of these lawsuits is an employee with COVID-19 who gets fired and claims disability discrimination.
That begs the question: when is COVID-19 a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act?
I’ll supply a fact pattern. You grab a gavel, black robe, and perhaps one of those white wigs, and we’ll see what you think. Continue reading
How much medical information can we get from employees who may have disabilities?
The Americans with Disabilities Act has strict rules about the scope and manner of disability-related inquiries and medical examinations of workers. Continue reading
Why did a federal judge call an appellate decision on private COVID-19 mandates an “orgy of jurisprudential violence?”
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg in this blistering (albeit, PG-rated) 58-page dissent to yesterday’s non-precedential Fifth Circuit decision, in which the majority concluded that a private company’s workplace vaccine mandate could irreparably harm individuals with disabilities and strong religious beliefs. Continue reading
That time the EEOC recovered $250K for a C-Suite employee who claimed disability discrimination
Proving that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission doesn’t just enforce anti-discrimination laws on behalf of the “little guy,” the EEOC announced on Monday that it had recovered $250,000 from a company that allegedly terminated its former CFO because of his disability.
Yes, that’s when it happened. Or, at least when the EEOC announced a settlement that it had reached — Happy Valentine’s Day!
What the heck is ‘bleisure’ and how could your company get sued over it?
People ask me if I like to read. Continue reading
Is this the worst batch of retaliatory emails I’ve ever read? Maybe.
Print this post if you want to discourage your managers and supervisor from putting dumb sh*t in emails that might one day get shown to a jury and end up costing your business a mint. Continue reading
Here are 150,000 reasons not to play doctor when your employee tells you that she may have cancer.
In 2020, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued two employers for terminating a title clerk working at their automobile dealership allegedly over fears that she might have cancer. Continue reading
“Liberal” Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is retiring. Here are three times he joined “conservative” justices when deciding employment law cases.
Yesterday, several news outlets reported that Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer will retire at the end of this term. President Bill Clinton appointed Justice Breyer in 1994. Justice Breyer sided with OSHA and HHS in the vaccine mandate cases earlier this month. Indeed, Breyer is considered one of the more “liberal” justices.
But did you know that some (or all) of the “conservative” justices joined in significant employment law decisions that Justice Breyer authored? Continue reading