Over the years, lots of people have written about the intersection between Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), myself included. You simply cannot deal with the ADA and not be aware of the FMLA and vice-versa. Some of the things to be aware of is that the FMLA
Federal Cases
Are public colleges and public universities immune from suit as a result of sovereign immunity in ADA matters
In a previous blog entry, the principle of sovereign immunity and how they might apply to a County was discussed. What wasn’t discussed, was whether sovereign immunity would apply to a public university or public college. A case that addresses this is Doe v. Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska, 280…
All by myself (with apologies to Eric Carmen): to file suit under title III of the ADA, do you have to first exhaust administrative remedies?
Title I of the Americans With Disabilities Act requires that a person seeking to file a claim for employment discrimination must first file a claim with the EEOC or a substantially equivalent state agency and receive a right to sue letter before proceeding in court. What if you wish to file a claim under title…
Does the obligation to keep information confidential extend beyond medical exams and medical inquiries?
Previously, I have written that, “the Americans with Disabilities Act requires that medical information obtained on an employee or prospective employee be kept confidential.” See Understanding the Americans with Disabilities Act, third edition at p. 40. However, in light of EEOC v. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans , _F.3d_, 2012 WL 5846208 (7th Cir. November 20,…
“Regarded as” and title II and are there different rules for “direct threat” depending upon the context
Recently, I read a case out of the Western District of Pennsylvania which I found absolutely fascinating. In this particular case, the court dealt with three issues. First, does the plaintiff have a disability at all? Second, does “regarded as” even apply outside of the title I context? Finally, was the plaintiff a direct threat…
Mixed motive: another permutation and do lawyers have it backwards
A hot area of the Americans with Disabilities Act jurisprudence is the question of mixed motive. That is, can a plaintiff get a mixed motive jury instruction in Americans with Disabilities Act cases, or for that matter in Rehabilitation Act cases as well, in light of Gross v. FBL Financial Services? Previously, we have…
Sovereign immunity principles outside of sovereign immunity claims and the importance of self-evaluation and transition plans
In a previous blog entry, I talked about the principle of sovereign immunity as it applies to persons with disabilities. As mentioned in that blog entry, a state, including an arm of the state, is not going to be forced to waive its sovereign immunity with respect to disability discrimination in employment matters.…
LSAT and Title III discrimination
Anybody that wants to go to law school must take the LSAT, law school admission test sponsored by the law school admission Council (LSAC) . The LSAT is a standardized test consisting of 100 multiple-choice questions ( Binno v. American Bar Association, 2012 WL 4513617, *1 (E.D. Mich. September 30, 2012)), divided into five…
Persons with disabilities and peremptory challenges
Few cases today actually go to trial. However, the ones that do go to trial involving juries necessarily mean that a jury has to be picked first. Jurors aren’t so much picked as they are eliminated. With respect to jury selection, there are three kinds of jury challenges. First, there is a peremptory challenge. Peremptory…
Sovereign immunity and persons with disabilities
Sovereign immunity is enormously complicated. What it is, is a principle from which the founding fathers took from England that says a sovereign cannot be sued for damages without its consent. This principal goes way back, and also can be found in the 11th amendment to the United States Constitution. The language of the 11th…