The United States Supreme Court and the regulations implementing title I of the ADA allow for a complete defense to discrimination against persons with disabilities when the discrimination is necessary in order to comply with other federal law or regulations. Albertsons v. Kirkingburg 527 U.S. 555, 570, 570 n.16; see also id. at 578 (J.
Title I
Recent EEOC guidances and a recent fact sheet
It has been a little while since we talked about employment law here. Now, it is time to get back to it. Recently the EEOC issued four guidances on four different disabilities, diabetes, intellectual disability, cancer, and epilepsy. They also issued a fact sheet on the mental health provider’s role in…
Class-action and persons with disabilities R.I.P.?
Here’s a fact. No two disabilities even the same ones are the same. Accordingly, it makes perfect sense that the ADA requires an individual analysis throughout. Further, under both title I and title II of the Americans With Disabilities Act, in addition to having a disability, the person must be qualified. That is, capable of…
ADA and the Applicable Statute of Limitations
The whole idea of the statute of limitations is to prevent stale claims. Just about everything has a statute of limitations (the only two exceptions that I can think of our claims arising under USERRA and capital murder claims). The ADA does have statute of limitations to deal with, though it is not stated in…
Bringing sanity to mixed motive jury instructions
In this blog, I’ve written about mixed motive jury instruction twice. In the first entry, we explored whether mixed motive jury instructions with respect to the ADA were even possible after Gross v. FBL Financial. In the second, we explored whether where there is more than one cause of action to be…
McDonnell-Douglass and the ADA; An Imperfect fit
In employment discrimination cases, there are two kinds of cases (those involving direct evidence and those involving indirect evidence). Direct evidence cases are the proverbial smoking gun. That is, the plaintiff has explicit evidence that discrimination occurred. However, in most situations, it is difficult if not impossible to find direct evidence, rather things taken together…
Getting to first base: surviving a motion to dismiss
In law school, we learn that the federal system is a notice pleading jurisdiction. The idea behind notice pleading is that you make a general statement as to what the case is about if you are a plaintiff and then the rest is up to discovery. Once discovery is done you can go with the…
Before doing a postemployment medical exam, do you need reasonable suspicion, probable cause, good cause, none of the above?
The ADA requires that an entity subject to the act cannot require a medical examination and cannot make inquiries of an employee as to whether that employee is an individual with a disability or as to the nature of the severity of the employee’s disability unless that examination or inquiry is job-related and consistent with…
Title II, employment, and essential eligibility requirements
Before we get started on the blog entry, I want to thank everyone for their readership. This week, we should surpass the 1000 visitor mark. Also, we have now surpassed the 10,000 view mark. Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!
This blog entry explores whether title II of the ADA applies to employment issues, and how do you go about…
Enshrinement of unfair advantage as a legal standard: OCR, 504, and Sports
For years (every edition of my book starting with the very first edition published in 2000 has had a chapter on the ADA and sports), I’ve written about how the ADA applies to sports. The United States Department of Education Office of Civil Rights has just issued a guidance dealing with their section 504 regulations…