Image by mcmurryjulie from Pixabay Every once in a while, a different client calls me with the same Americans with Disabilities Act question, “Eric, our employee tells us that she has a disability and needs and accommodation. Can we ask for medical documentation to help us evaluate whether an accommodation…
Image by CryptoSkylark from Pixabay Let’s say that you have an employee prone to angry outbursts. Sound familiar? But, what if those outbursts were a symptom of something like bipolar disorder? And let’s say that the employee can control his anger if he takes medicine and short breaks. The Americans…
By National Museum of American History – Image by Godot13, Public Domain, Link Workplace accommodations can be easy. For example, when an employee with carpal tunnel syndrome requests an ergonomic keyboard to perform his job, and his job involves a lot of typing, you get him the keyboard. Or maybe…
Image by diapicard from Pixabay In 2020, the Americans with Disabilities Act turns 30. President George H.W. Bush signed it into law in 1990 to ensure civil rights for individuals with disabilities. Chia-Yi Hou at The Hill published a nice 30-year ADA recap here. The ADA is much more than…
By Augustus Binu, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link Because I’m a lawyer, I’ll say it depends. Except, I won’t charge you 0.1 hours of my time to say it. Instead, I encourage you to go to SHRM’s website and read this article from Roy Maurer. Roy addresses a decision by the…
Image Credit: https://freesvg.org/1550658029 (Public Domain) Regular, in-person attendance is generally critical to performing one’s job. So, when an employee exhausts her twelve weeks of leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act only to miss another 33 days of work (resulting in a 59% absentee rate), one’s job security may…
Downturn Direction Banks Trend Down Symbol Arrow (Maxpixel.net: License to use Creative Commons Zero – CC0) In the context of an employment discrimination lawsuit, when I think about a demotion, I’m also thinking of retaliation. The plaintiff with a disability was also thinking the same thing in this recent federal court…
Image by Tariq Abro from Pixabay I’m pretty sure that I’ve blogged about this before. But, maybe not. So, either what I’m about to tell you bears repeating, or I’m only going to say this once, so pay attention. If an employee with a disability requests a chair, stool, or…
Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay There are times when employers have to make difficult decisions impacting the workplace. Today, I’m going to talk to you about one of them involving an employee who attempted suicide and, subsequently, pressed the company to return him to work. The plaintiff in this…
Renée Gordon (FDA), Victovoi [Public domain], via Wikimedia CommonsLast night, I read this recent Seventh Circuit opinion about a man who applied for a job with a railroad. The job required some fairly physical work; namely, climbing and working on and around heavy equipment. The company’s policy was not to…