Disability Discrimination

Publisher’s Note:  Today’s guest post is provided by Brandon Underwood, one of my colleagues at Fredrikson & Byron, P.A.   Hopefully Brandon will catch the blogging bug and continue to post….

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) forbids medical examinations and inquiries in employment.  But not all of them.  Instead, an examination or inquiry’s permissibility, and scope, turns primarily on when it occurs.  Too early, and the examination violates the ADA.  Too late, and it may as well.Continue Reading Court Finds Employer’s Inquiry about Health Conditions of New Employees Absorbed in Merger Complies with ADA

As we have written here many times, summary judgment is an important tool for defendants in employment discrimination cases.   Studies have shown that in federal court, summary judgment is granted to defendants in employment discrimination cases more than in any other type of case.  These studies confirm the experience of most employment lawyers who try cases, whether they represent mostly plaintiffs or mostly defendants.
Continue Reading Summary Judgement in Employment Discrimination Cases May Be Making a Comeback in Iowa State Court

An employee commits an offense that would justify termination.  But, she asks for another chance because the misconduct was not intentional; it was caused by a diabetes induced severe drop in blood sugar that caused confusion and memory loss.    Must the employer be more lenient on an employee with a disability as a form of

Most employers know they are obligated under the ADA to accommodate mental as well as physical disabilities.  In theory that seems easy enough, but in practice mental health conditions are much more difficult to deal with than physical disabilities.   For example, a common problem is that the employer often lacks specific information about the nature

It’s an all too common situation: an employee’s medical condition results in permanent restrictions that prevent the employee from performing essential job functions that she used to be able to do.   It is not reasonable to modify the job so the employee can keep the position.   There is a vacancy in another department for which

Most of us think about workplace accommodations as modifications that will allow an employee with a disability to perform his job.  Without the accommodation, doing the job may be difficult or impossible. Whether that means modifying the job duties, changing the schedule, or providing an assistive device, the ultimate objective is to help the employee

A federal district court in Michigan recently granted summary judgment for the plaintiff, (you read that correctly), ruling that the employer was liable for disability discrimination as a matter of law. (Lafata v. Dearborn Heights Sch. Dist. No.7 (E.D. Mich. 12/11/2013)).   A plaintiff hardly ever files for summary judgment in an employment case, let

The best outcome to a discrimination lawsuit from the employer’s perspective is to win outright—for the judge or jury to find that the employer did not unlawfully discriminate. But, even if you lose, there is a “Plan B” defense—the failure to mitigate damages.   An employee who is terminated (or not hired in the first place)

Fixed or no-fault leave policies were once considered easy way to manage attendance and long term leave of absence issues.   Once the employee reaches the maximum number of absences, or is gone the maximum number of weeks on medical leave, the employee is terminated; no questions asked, no exceptions.   The benefit of these kinds of

A divided panel of the Iowa Court of Appeals recently ruled that the rules of construction in the ADA as amended in 2008 apply to the Iowa Civil RIghts Act when determining what constitutes a disability (Knudsen v. Tiger Tots Community Child Care Center, No. 2-1011, 1/9/13). Although Knudsen is a public accommodation and not an employment case