Just what is the exposure to prisons with respect to discriminating against prisoners with disabilities? Prisons have several areas of exposure. First, if a prisoner is employed by the prison and suffers discrimination on the basis of a disability with respect to that employment, title I is involved. Second, the programs and activities of the
Does Association discrimination apply to title II of the ADA?
By William Goren on
This blog entry explores whether an association discrimination claim applies to title II of the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act, and, for that matter, the California Disabled Persons Act. As is my practice, the blog is divided into the facts, the issue, the court’s reasoning, and takeaways. Feel free to zero in on any and/or all…
Third-party administrators and the risk of being an employer
By William Goren on
It is not unusual for companies of all sizes to outsource their HR functions and/or their benefit administration, though outsourcing their benefits administration is probably more common. What happens if the third party administrator starts making employment decisions for the company whose benefits they are administering? In that situation, there is a risk that the…
What can we expect from the DOJ regulations regarding the Internet? Now, we have an idea
By William Goren on
I
Introductory Comments
Last week the Department of Justice as intervenor and the National Federation of the Blind on behalf of itself and two plaintiffs entered into a consent decree with H&R Block and the entity that runs its website. While the defendant did not admit any liability, they did agree to pay $22,500 to…
Exhaustion of administrative remedies redux: when is a party on notice?
By William Goren on
The stereotype of judges is that they are boring and wouldn’t relate well to an audience. I have attended several CLE’s where judges were the speakers, and that stereotype is just not true. Of course, some are better than others, but that is true with every speaker you here. One of the great CLE speakers,…
Suing state court system redux
By William Goren on
One of my more popular blog entries is the blog entry that discusses suing a state court system for disability discrimination . Here is another case along those lines. In Phillips v. New Hampshire Circuit Court, Eighth Circuit, District Division, 2014 WL 495656 (D. N.H. February 5, 2014) (unpublished decision), the plaintiff had a…
DOJ brings the hammer down on the State of Lousiana’s bar licensing authority
By William Goren on
I’m going to be off next week, and so I thought I would blog on this one since it is something I have talked about before.
Previously, I blogged on a South Dakota Supreme Court case and talked about the difficulty a person with MH has in passing the character and fitness gauntlet. I also…
Temporary disabilities and the ADA
By William Goren on
Posted in ADA, Final Federal Regulations, Proposed Federal Regulations, Title I, Title II, Title III
In the first and second editions of my book, understanding the ADA, I cited to the case of Burch v. Coca-Cola Company, 119 F.3d 305 (5th Cir. 1997), for the proposition that temporary disabilities are not protected by the ADA. However, I did say as a preventive manner, it made sense to treat temporary…
DOJ regulations implementing title II and title III of the ADA amendments act: where’s the impact?
By William Goren on
Last week, the Department of Justice proposed rules implementing title II and title III of the ADA in light of the amendments to the ADA. I’m not going to go into depth here, but I thought I’d go over some particularly significant items in the proposed rule. Of course, what follows is not comprehensive and…
The ADA and Bar Examiners: Uphill Climb for Wannabe Attorneys may have just become less so
By William Goren on
In a previous blog entry, I talked about how a person with an MH history desiring to be an attorney faces an uphill climb with respect to the State Bar’s character and fitness gauntlet that has to be run. In particular, I talked about a case from the Supreme Court of South Dakota that…