Blog: Americans with Disabilities Act

 

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Company Websites May Tangle Up Employers in ADA Liability

Posted on February 8, 2016 by
Blog

Does your company’s public business website create liability under the ADA?  The short, lawyerly, answer is—“it depends.”  Plaintiffs’ lawyers across the country are seizing upon Title III of the ADA [Places of Public Accommodation] as a basis for making threatening demands and filing lawsuits based on the claim that publicly-accessible business websites do not provide […]

EEOC Fails to Claim That a Company’s Wellness Program Violates the ADA

Posted on January 7, 2016 by
Blog

A federal judge for the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin has dismissed a claim by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) that a company’s wellness program violates the American’s with Disabilities Act (“ADA”).  The company, which has a manufacturing facility in Baraboo, Wisconsin, offered to its employees the ability to participate […]

Disabling Condition? Protected Conduct?

Posted on August 10, 2015 by
Blog

Two recent court decisions have opened the door for continued scrutiny on whether or not an individual is protected under the Americans With Disabilities Act.  In a Nebraska Federal Court case, the District Court held that an employee was not protected because of her severe obesity but this case is on appeal to the 8th […]

New Year Present from EEOC – Review of Wellness Programs

Posted on May 5, 2015 by
Blog

As we think about Christmas presents, the EEOC recently announced its initiatives for the next year. One of those initiatives will be a review of wellness programs and the incentives that an employer provides to employees to participate in a wellness program. The EEOC is trying to coordinate the requirements of the Affordable Care Act […]

Employer’s Failure to Accommodate Needle Phobia Leads to 2.6 Million Dollar ADA Verdict

Posted on May 1, 2015 by
Blog

Last week, a federal jury in an Americans with Disabilities Act case entered a 2.6 million dollar plaintiff’s verdict in favor of a former Rite Aid Corporation pharmacist who Rite Aid allegedly discharged in response to his inability to administer flu shots. According to court records, the former Rite Aid pharmacist suffered from trypanophobia, which […]

Federal Court Says Working From Home is Not Automatic Accommodation

Posted on April 28, 2015 by
Blog

A recent decision by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission failed in its claim that Ford Motor Company violated the Americans With Disabilities Act by failing to accommodate an employee with irritable bowel syndrome when the employee requested to work from home on four days of the work […]

Is Six Months Enough?

Posted on June 6, 2014 by
Blog

A recent decision from the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has addressed the question whether a six-month leave of absence for a disabled employee is sufficient to satisfy the reasonable accommodation requirement. The Court of Appeals found that Kansas State University satisfied the reasonable accommodation requirements under the Rehabilitation Act when terminating an assistant professor […]

Accommodation for Disabled Applicant?

Posted on May 20, 2014 by
Blog

We are seeing more and more requests from an applicant to have some type of accommodation for the individual to be considered for a vacant position. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently issued an informal letter to a public employer outlining the duties of an employer to make an accommodation for an applicant that suffers […]

What Now? Is a Temporary Impairment Now Considered a Disability?

Posted on May 16, 2014 by
Blog

Employers have always been told that an employee that suffers a temporary impairment or injury does not qualify as a disabled employee under the Americans with Disabilities Act. For example, an employee falling out of a deer stand and breaking his leg would not be considered disabled for purposes of an accommodation requirement under the […]