Articles Posted in Disability

To defend against a claim of discrimination, an employer can argue that it fired an employee because it honestly believed that the employee did “X.” And, as long as “X” isn’t discriminatory, the employer prevails. This is the honest belief doctrine.

So, can an employee flip the “honest belief doctrine” on its head to show that an employer’s purported legitimate business reason for disciplining an employee was actually pretext for discrimination?

Find out after the jump…

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You run a delivery service using large trucks and require that drivers be qualified by the Department of Transportation. Although your facility managers aren’t often behind the wheel of the big rigs, you nonetheless require that they too be DOT certified.

One day, a manager with a disabling eye injury comes to you and asks for an accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act: to be excused from driving trucks so that he may focus on “managing.”

Assuming that no other reasonable accommodation exists, must you give it to him?

Unquestionably, when it come to tackling the Americans with Disabilities Act, one of the biggest issues affecting the workplace and accommodating disabled employees is providing leave as a reasonable accommodation. Anecdotally, a question that plagues most employers is just how much leave is enough?

We know that an indefinite leave of absence is not a reasonable accommodation. But, what about when an employee takes one leave, after another, after another.

After the jump, I’ll address the big question: when is enough enough?

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Over the weekend, I read this article from Kara Swisher on AllThingsD.com, in which she reports that Yahoo!, under its new leadership, will implement a no-telecommuting rule, effective June 1.

Ms. Swisher posted a copy of the internal Yahoo! memorandum to its employees, in which the company underscores the “critical” need to be at the office versus working form home where “speed and quality are often compromised.”

Sounds good in theory. But I have a little monkey-wrench.

Today we have a guest blogger at The Employer Handbook. It’s my colleague, Katharine Hartman. Katharine is an associate in Dilworth Paxson’s Labor & Employment Group, but also asked that I give a little shoutout to our new Test Publishing, Certification and Licensure Group.

So holla!

After the jump is a little cross-over between the two. Hope you like it.

(Want to guest blog at The Employer Handbook? Email me).

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I was reading this federal court opinion over the weekend. It involves a disability-discrimination claim brought by a deaf man who applied to become a lifeguard at a county pool, but didn’t get the job because the county thought his disability would compromise swimmer safety. Plus, the town was not convinced that it could accommodate the deaf applicant because it couldn’t be 100% certain that he could safely be on the lifeguard stand alone, without someone constantly by his side.

Folks, I’m guilty.

I’ll admit, that when I started reading this opinion, I immediately jumped to the same conclusion as the county-defendant. How could it possibly be safe to employ a deaf lifeguard?

Where did you think I was going with this post? 

(And you call yourselves Human Resource professionals). 

Just kidding. You know I love you.