Articles Posted in Disability

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Puzzle Mosaic Riddle Secret Mystery Mixture

The biggest impact on employers, when the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act took effect on January 1, 2009, was to downplay whether an employee actually had a disability, and get businesses focusing more on whether there existing a reasonable accommodation that would permit an employee to perform the essential functions of the job.

Many management-side employment lawyers joked that, under the ADAAA, everyone had a disability. That’s how easy it was to establish.

Well, except maybe a cleft palate.

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Pitfall! Coverart.png
A few months ago, I was waxing poetic about plutonium, how to establish essential job functions, and quality-testing diet scrapple. What got into me?

Now, I’ve got a cautionary tale, in the form of a recent federal court opinion, to help you good folks navigate away from some of the Americans with Disabilities Act traps. Lest you like litigation and lawyer bills.

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Sobriety checkpoint easthaven ct

By Versageek (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

Alcoholism can be a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The EEOC notes here that the ADA may protect a “qualified” alcoholic who can meet the definition of “disability.” What is a “qualified” alcoholic? Someone who can perform the essential functions of the job with or without accommodation.

Allowing an alcoholic to attend AA to remain clean and sober? That works.

But, accommodating an alcoholic who “falls off the wagon,” gets a DUI, and needs time off from work because he is incarcerated? Not so much.

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Kleenex tissues

Who knew?

I received a lot of feedback on last week’s post. That was the one about an EEOC lawsuit alleging that a company violated the Americans with Disabilities Act when it allegedly failed to accommodate a disabled employee’s request to use a service dog.

Among the reader feedback was a question about what happens when permitting an employee to use a service dog would cause another employee’s pet allergies to flare up.

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Pixabay.comHere’s a snippet from a recent EEOC press release:

The [Americans with Disabilities Act] protects employees from discrimination based on their disabilities and requires employers to make reasonable accommodations to employees’ and applicants’ disabilities as long as it does not pose an undue hardship.

That’s employees and applicants. And, that’s important.

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