Offering Practical Guidance to Employers
This certainly sounds futuristic. (Pun intended.) Still, in a case just decided by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, EEOC v. STME, LLC, the EEOC espoused precisely this position.
The EEOC sued STME for disability discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act on behalf of Kimberly Lowe, a former STME massage therapist. Lowe was…
It seems axiomatic that a disability discrimination claim requires the plaintiff to suffer from a disability. In Johnson v. N.Y. State Office of Alcoholism & Substance Abuse Servs., No. 16-cv-9769 (RJS) (S.D.N.Y., March 13, 2018), a judge in the Southern District of New York dismissed a pro se plaintiff’s complaint for failure to allege…
It is well established that an employee need not specifically request leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”) in order to benefit from the Act’s protections. Rather, the law requires the employer to take action to notify an employee of FMLA rights when the employer acquires knowledge that an employee’s leave may be…
Rejecting an obese plaintiff’s claim that her employer “regarded” her weight as a physical impairment, a federal district court said that her obesity is no more an impairment that any other physical characteristic, such as, for example, an individual’s neon green mohawk. Powell v. Gentiva Health Services, Inc. (S.D. AL, February 12, 2014). The court…
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…
The Connecticut law prohibiting discrimination against an individual who has a “physical disability” does not create a cause of action for discrimination by someone who does not have, but is perceived to have, a physical disability, according to the Connecticut Appellate Court. Desrosiers v. Diageo (Aug 14, 2012). The Court noted that the state law…
A plaintiff who thought she had the swine flu, and thought she had an ADA claim when she was terminated after four days of absence for the flu, had neither. Lewis v. Florida Default Law Group,P.L. (M.D. FL Sept. 15, 2011).
The plaintiff was diagnosed with “seasonal flu” but “understood” she was diagnosed with the H1NI…
When an employee complains of harassment, the employer response is to investigate and take appropriate remedial action. In Kagawa v. First Hawaiian Bank/Bancwest Corp., the employer responded accordingly and is now a defendant in an ADA “regarded as” claim.
The plaintiff, a Senior Credit Analyst, alleged that she is a mystic, hears God’s voice…
