Articles Posted in Disability

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.

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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).

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.

If I could drink up your collective skepticism when it comes to these Americans with Disabilities Act cases…

…I’d need my stomach pumped.

Let’s see. There’s the one about the utilityman who couldn’t climb utility poles, but had an ADA claim against a utility company. And then who can forget the bridge worker with the fear of heights who presented a viable ADA claim? And what about the stripper who feared climbing the stripper pole?