Talk about a pissed-off plaintiff.
When the new amendments to the the Americans with Disabilities Act took effect in 2009, the law became more employee-friendly by expanding the definition of what constitutes a disability.
That said, the law doesn’t (yet) require an employer to have a sixth sense about whether a disabled employee requires a reasonable accommodation.
Generally, an employee has to ask for it. Or, as we find out after the jump, an ADA failure-to-accommodate lawsuit is pretty much doomed.
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.”
Peep this ADA failure-to-accommodate case. Plaintiff is disabled and requests light duty. However, the evidence presented showed that there were no light duty positions available and the plaintiff presented no evidence to the contrary.
In denying the plaintiff’s ADA claim, the court underscored that it’s the plaintiff’s burden to show that a requested reasonable accommodation exists and is available. Otherwise, my friends, if it’s not available, then it’s not reasonable.
Plus, it may violate the Americans with Disabilities Act too.
How one company’s alleged blunder turned into an ADA lawsuit and a blog post at https://www.theemployerhandbook.com…after the jump…
My cold, black employment-law heart is numb to just about anything.
I remember this one time, early in my career, when I had to depose a teenage female plaintiff and ask her, with her mother present in the room, whether it offended her that her alleged male sexual harasser wanted to have a threesome with her and her mother.
Back then, it seemed salacious. Now, it’s like, whatever. Most of this stuff just rolls off of my shoulders.
Hey there, United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
This Americans with Disabilities Act failure-to-accomodate opinion right here. You had me at “Ortiz reported to work on April 5, 2010, carrying one empty and three full cans of ‘Mike’s Hard Lemonade’ (an alcoholic beverage), along with raw meat.”
I may borrow that line for my Hangover Part IV treatment. It stars Zach Galifianakis and the rest of the crew — cameos by Pee Wee Herman, Octomom, and Peter Dinklage (as Tyrion Lannister) — and centers around the hi-jinx that ensue after the boys get blackout drunk following Alan’s nephew’s bris.
A few months ago, I blogged about a California federal court decision, which recognized that Walgreens may have an obligation under the Americans with Disabilities Act to accommodate one of its cashiers who opened a $1.39 bag of chips (without having paid for it first) because she was suffering from an attack of hypoglycemia (low blood sugar).
That post was entitled “The ADA may require companies to accommodate employee theft. Yep, stealing.“
Unfortunately, definitive guidance on that will have to spring from another lawsuit. That is, Walgreens settled for $180,000 last week. A copy of the consent decree is embedded below (and can also be found here).
And by coffee, I mean turkey legs and frozen blueberry-mango rum lemonade.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down…
You see that badge over there? You know what I had to do to get that badge?Buy the full version of Photoshop Spike the Kool-Aid of everyone on the SHRM Annual Conference Speaker Selection Committee
I beat out thousands (trillions?) of other speaker submissions to be selected as a SHRM 2014 Annual Conference & Exposition speaker.
So much for that case of Monday writer’s block…
From a recent EEOC press release:
According to the EEOC’s suit, Disability Network denied a deaf independent living specialist reasonable accommodations and then fired him. For example, the nonprofit refused the employee his requests for TTY equipment, a video phone and the ability to use text messaging, and refused to provide him with alternate accommodations.
In two weeks, at the SHRM Annual Conference, I’ll be presenting “Meeting the Challenges That Leaves of Absence and Attendance Issues Present Under the FMLA and ADA.”
The good news is that I have 75 minutes of HR greatness planned for my SHRM sesh. The bad news is that my presentation is at 7:00 AM on the day after the #SHRM14 Social Bash at the Hard Rock Cafe.
So, let’s just say “Hey, thanks a lot, SHRM!” that I anticipate an intimate gathering of HR hardcore FMLA/ADAthletes for my spiel.
The Employer Handbook Blog