Offering Practical Guidance to Employers
We haveposted previously about the ADA’s “accommodation of last resort”: when an employee cannot perform the essential functions of his or her position, with or without an accommodation, due to a disability, an employer must consider transferring the employee to a vacant lateral or lower position for which the employee is qualified.
Whether a …
We posted previously about the Seventh Circuit holding in EEOC v. United Airlines that, in deciding whether a disabled employee who cannot perform the essential functions of his or her position is entitled to a vacant position as an accommodation under the ADA, the employer must disregard its policy of awarding positions to the best-qualified…
Determining when to terminate an employee on a leave of absence for medical reasons is a challenge under any circumstances. No “inflexible” rules can be applied, not even “equal treatment.” As part of its deliberations, an employer must make an individualized assessment to determine if, when, and under what circumstances an employee can return to…
The company told the plaintiff he was being terminated because it “feared that he had contracted swine flu while in Mexico for his sister’s funeral.” For a time, swine flu had been declared a public health emergency and medical authorities feared the worst. We now know that the swine flu hospitality and mortality profile is very similar…
Reading Hospital assigns parking locations to employees based on seniority, department location and shift. Caught using a purloined parking pass, plaintiff was reassigned to a remote parking location, which required her to take a shuttle bus from her worksite to her car at the end of the workday, which delayed her departure, which made her…
An employer’s email to a “no call/no show” employee asking “what is going on” is not a “medical inquiry” under the ADA, according to the 7th Circuit.eeoc v. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans (7th Cir. Nov. 20. 2012).
The Court rejected the EEOC’s argument that the word “inquiries” in the “Medical Examinations and Inquiries” section…
Add another multi-million dollar settlement notch to the EEOC’s “inflexible leave” belt. The EEOC announced that national trucking company Interstate Distributor Company will pay $4.85 million to resolve a nationwide class disability discrimination lawsuit the EEOC had brought against Interstate.
The lawsuit alleged that Interstate had a policy of terminating employees who needed more than…
First Oktoberfest, now Pulaski Days.
Recall our post about an employee on FMLA who was terminated after his employer learned about his Oktoberfest festival jaunt. The Sixth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the employer on the plaintiff’s FMLA retaliation claim, holding that, based on the plaintiff’s actions at the festival, the employer had an “honest belief” that the employee…
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, usually, but not in this case. What happened in Vegas was scrutinized because the plaintiff claimed that her absences for her trip there were protected by the FMLA because she was “caring for” her mother on her mom’s end-of-life trip. A charitable organization which grants wishes to persons with…
When an employee cannot perform the essential functions of his or her position, with or without an accommodation due to a disability, an employer must consider “the accommodation of last resort”—transfer to a vacant lateral or lower position for which the employee is qualified.
Circuit courts had been evenly divided on whether an individual with…
