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Employers must consider transferring employees with disabilities so they can be close to medical care, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Sanchez v. Vilsack (No. 11-2118 (10th Cir. Sept. 19, 2012)). Clarice Sanchez worked as a secretarial employee for the U.S. Forest Service. When she fell at work, she sustained brain damage […]
A new bill would require employers to provide reasonable accommodations for pregnant employees just as they do for those with disabilities. The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, S. 3565, is modeled after the Americans with Disabilities Act and borrows some of its language. In the same way that ADA requires accommodations for workers with disabilities, it […]
by Mark I. Schickman Remembering that employment discrimination has been illegal for less than 50 years, workplace accommodation has come a long way. The first accommodation laws protected people with cancer, back when cancer was feared to be contagious. The law was put to the test when it was applied to protect people infected with […]
by Nancy Williams Just as private-sector workers are required to file an administrative charge of discrimination before filing a lawsuit under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, federal employees also have prefiling requirements. In a disability discrimination case against the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the 9th Circuit recently decided that the […]
Employees were given new rights to a secure and private place in which to express breast milk under a 2010 amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act; however, that amendment does not give those employees a private right to sue their employers for failing to provide such a space. Instead, said the U.S. District Court […]
Since the enactment of the ADA Amendments Act (ADAAA) in 2009, commentators have been predicting a rise in disability claims. Statistics recently released by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) show that those predictions have come true. In fiscal year 2011, the number of disability discrimination charges filed under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) […]
A federal appellate court may reconsider its views on “reassignment” as a reasonable accommodation under the Americans With Disabilities Act, at the request of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC takes the position that the ADA requires employers to reassign employees, whose disability prevents them from performing their current job, to a vacant position […]
Until recently, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations were quite broad in their definition of “service animal,” but that changed earlier this year. Now Maine, which had kept the definition loose in state law, also is tightening up on what constitutes a service animal. Employers must provide reasonable accommodations not only for employees with disabilities […]
Job creation is the economy’s number one problem, but it’s reasonable to predict that not one job will be created because an employee broke his or her leg. That won’t stop some workers from trying, though, as shown in this Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) case In White v. Interstate Distributor, Co., a fired […]
Many employers have had more than their fair share of discrimination allegations. Continental Airlines was accused of race, color, national origin, religious, and disability discrimination in one lawsuit. Let’s take a look at how it did more than its fair share of trying to work with the employee before eventually terminating him. Losing Control Meet […]