In a significant case involving an employer’s obligation to transfer a disabled employee, who cannot perform the essential functions of the employee’s current position, to an open, vacant position, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that an employer’s policy of hiring the most qualified candidate to fill vacant positions need not be ignored by
In Credeur v. State of Louisiana, an attorney working as a litigator with the attorney general’s office experienced health issues related to a kidney transplant. The Office of the Attorney General allowed Credeur to work from home temporarily while she was recovering from her transplant surgery. After several months of telecommuting, the Office of
This week the EEOC published a resource document intended to provide guidance on providing disabled employees with leave of absence as a reasonable accommodation.
According to the Commission,
[It] continues to receive charges indicating that some employers may be unaware of Commission positions about leave and the ADA. For example, some employers may not know
Daniel Schwartz at the Connecticut Employment Law Blog has an interesting post today about the effect the American Psychiatric Association’s proposed changes the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual could have to the Connecticut body of disability discrimination law. While Connecticut is unique, according to Schwartz, in its definition of disability and expressly includes mental conditions listed in
In a recent pre-ADAA case, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a former UPS employee’s limitations caused by Type II diabetes were not disabling and that UPS did not fail to provide reasonable accommodation to a known disability. Despite the fact that this case was based on pre-ADAA law, there are still some useful
One of North Texas’ largest employers announced that it will not longer hire or consider for hire any individual who uses any nicotine product (i.e., cigarettes, nicotine gum or patches, chewing tobacco or electronic cigarettes). Baylor Health Care Systems announced its new policy on the careers page of its website stating:
There’s an old saying in rural America that "pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered." We used the phrase to describe someone who, instead of being satisfied with what he has, gets greedy. In the litigation context it can be used to describe a party that takes overly aggressive, unreasonable and untenable positions. My fellow bloggers, Work Blawg
There has been a lot of ink spilled and kilobytes written about how the ADA Amendments Act has substantially expanded the rights of individuals with disabilities to seek and obtain reasonable workplace accommodations. (See post, post, post, and post). The increase in the number of applicants and employees who qualify for reasonable accommodations and
In a suit you don’t see filed everyday, the El Paso District Office of the EEOC recently filed a disability discrimination lawsuit against Starbucks over the termination of an employee suffering from dwarfism. According to the EEOC’s Complaint:
Charging Part has a physical impairment, dwarfism. . . [and] is substantially limited in the major life
The EEOC recently brought suit against the country’s largest home builder on behalf of a pregnant employee who was denied a period of unpaid leave in addition to the maximum permitted under the employer’s policies. What is unique about this suit is that the EEOC brought the suit under the Americans with Disabilities Act rather than the Pregnancy
