Employment Discrimination

ADA’s Reasonable Accommodation Requirement Doesn’t Demand Non-Competitive Job Reassignment, 11th Circuit Says

January 26, 2017 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

Most employers know that the law obliges them to accommodate their employees with disabilities, as long as the accommodation sought is reasonable. The question with which employers and employees often wrestle is “What is the limit of reasonable?” For example, if an employer has an employee with a disability who needs an accommodation that involves job reassignment, how far must the employer go to make that happen? Must the employer place the employee into an acceptable open position ahead of other, more qualified applicants? A recent 11th Circuit Court of Appeals decision said no.

The employee in the case was a nurse at a psychiatric hospital in Tampa. The nurse was obese and had arthritis. Her condition eventually worsened to the point that she required a cane to walk anything more than short distances. The nurse had a doctor’s note recommending the use of the cane. The employer, however, was worried that one of the facility’s psychiatric patients might take the nurse’s cane from her and use it as a weapon. Based upon this concern for both employees and patients, the employer prohibited the nurse from using the cane.

The nurse requested that the employer reassign her to a new job as a reasonable accommodation. The employer agreed that it would be willing to do so, but only after the nurse competed for any desired position and was selected as the most qualified candidate. The nurse applied for several jobs but was never selected. Eventually, the hospital terminated her employment.

Eleventh Circuit Upholds Decision for Employer That Denied Additional Leave to Employee With Disability

January 19, 2017 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

In many types of litigation, timing can be crucial. This is true regarding how you go about carrying out your case procedurally, and it is often true when it comes to the facts of your case, especially if an employee is advancing a disability discrimination case based upon a denial of a leave request. In one recent case from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, that court upheld a lower court’s ruling for an employer. Since the employee was not able to do her job presently or in the immediate future, the employer’s denial of leave was not unreasonable.

Sixth Circuit: National Security Exception Doesn’t Diminish Employer’s Obligation Not to Engage in Disability Discrimination

January 5, 2017 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

The government’s interest in protecting national security, including national security information, can be very wide-ranging. However, based upon a recent ruling issued by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, national security exceptions do not allow a government-run nuclear power plant to revoke a medical clearance in a way that constitutes discrimination. The ruling means that, without an applicable exception, the employer must face the disability discrimination claim of a nuclear plant officer who was fired after failing a pulmonary function test and losing his medical clearance.

Georgia School District Settles Sex Discrimination Case with Former Superintendent

December 14, 2016 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

A groundbreaking 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, which revived a Georgia school superintendent’s sex discrimination case, has paved the way to a $400,000 settlement award for the former superintendent, the Thomasville Times-Enterprise reported. The settlement marks the end to litigation that allowed the 11th Circuit to weigh in on how courts should handle cases like this one, in which there was a mixture of valid bases for the adverse employment action along with clear proof of gender-based bias.

Sixth Circuit Ruling Highlights When Title VII Does (and Doesn’t) Protect Partners in a Partnership

December 7, 2016 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

Title VII’s protections are intended to protect employees from impermissible discrimination. In furtherance of that goal, a person must in fact be an employee in order to pursue a Title VII violation case. Some partners in businesses may qualify, but only if they prove that they are only “nominal” partners. In a recent Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals case, an ophthalmologist lost because the proof in her case showed that her standing as a partner was genuine and was much more than just nominal, meaning that she was not an employee under Title VII.

Eleventh Circuit Addresses Title VII Discrimination Claim in Downsizing Case

November 17, 2016 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

Layoffs. Downsizing. Reductions in force. These words and phrases can be painful for employees and employers alike. However, the issue of downsizing an employee can be especially tricky if that employee is also a member of a protected class, such as women or racial minorities. In a case recently decided by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, a downsized employee brought but lost a sex discrimination case against her employer. She lost because she couldn’t prove an essential part of her case, which was that she was qualified to assume another open job with her employer after her employer eliminated her position.

Sixth Circuit Applies Federal ADEA Statute of Limitations to Employees’ State Law Discrimination Case

November 10, 2016 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

The law can be full of twists and turns, with many nuances that may affect the resolution of an issue and, in the process, the ability of an employee to succeed in a discrimination case. In a recent Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals case involving several former employees at Chrysler, we saw this on display. The employees brought state, but not federal, age discrimination claims. However, since the alleged discrimination related to the employees’ retirement plans, the federal statute of limitations applied to their case and yielded a decision that they brought their legal action too late.

Sixth Circuit: Employee’s Request for Additional Time Off Was Not Reasonable, and Employer Did Not Violate ADA by Refusing

October 19, 2016 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

A recent disability discrimination case from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals is useful to Tennessee employees and employers in that it shines a light on some of the “variables” that can tip the scales of an employee’s Americans with Disabilities Act case in one direction or the other. In this case, since the employee had already been granted a long period of time off and was not certain of her recovery when she sought an extension of her leave, the appeals court relied on existing caselaw in ruling that the trial court correctly found the employer not in violation of the ADA when it denied the extension request and terminated the employee instead.

Full 11th Circuit Scraps Georgia Job Applicant’s Age Discrimination Case: What it Means for Georgia Employers and Employees

October 12, 2016 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

A recent ruling by the full 11th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a decision that an appellate panel had made earlier this year and also provided some clarity on which types of age discrimination claims job applicants in Georgia are and are not allowed to bring under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. The new opinion states that only employees, not employment candidates, can bring ADEA lawsuits in which they allege that the employer’s policies had a disproportionately harmful impact on older workers.

Sixth Circuit Follows “Honest Belief” Rule to Reject Wal-Mart Associate’s Age Discrimination Case

October 5, 2016 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

A Wal-Mart employee lost her attempt to bring an age discrimination case against her former employer after the company terminated her at age 62. The employee’s unsuccessful case is a reminder to employers and employees of the wide breadth of the “honest belief” rule, which says that, if an employer reasonably relied upon facts it had before it when it made its decision, it cannot be deemed to be using non-discriminatory reasons as mere pretexts for discrimination. The application of this rule to this employee’s case proved to be one integral piece in the failure of her age discrimination case at the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.