The Parzivand Law Firm represents both employees and employers in litigation and administrative charges involving employment discrimination. A separate section of the website is dedicated to charges of retaliation, another area of the firm’s practice.
Federal law and, in some cases, state counterparts protect most employees from discrimination and harassment because of the following characteristics:
The American’s With Disabilities Act (ADA) protects a much broader group of people than those who have disabilities in the common sense of the word.
Examples of potential disabilities include:
A failure to accommodate a disability in the following way could result in a claim:
The ADA defines a "disability" as:
The ADA considers a “major life activity” as a broad category defined to include caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, seeing, hearing, eating, sleeping, walking, standing, lifting, bending, speaking, breathing, learning, reading, concentrating, thinking, communicating, and working. It also includes major bodily functions such as immune system responses, normal cell growth, brain activity, and functions of the digestive, bowel, bladder, neurological, respiratory, circulatory, endocrine, and reproductive systems.
To the extent that a person’s disability interferes with their ability to perform their job duties, they may be entitled to a reasonable accommodation to allow them to continue their employment. A reasonable accommodation can vary based on the position and the organization. Characteristics that help determine what is reasonable include the size of the organization, the employee’s position, and available company manpower to accommodate the employee at his work location. Typically, a retail stocker at a large grocery store who misses 10 days of work due to a health condition could be more easily accommodated than a store manager who misses the same amount of time.
EEOC Guidance states:
May an employer apply a "no-fault" leave policy, under which employees are automatically terminated after they have been on leave for a certain period of time, to an employee with a disability who needs leave beyond the set period?No. If an employee with a disability needs additional unpaid leave as a reasonable accommodation, the employer must modify its "no-fault" leave policy to provide the employee with the additional leave, unless it can show that: (1) there is another effective accommodation that would enable the person to perform the essential functions of his/her position, or (2) granting additional leave would cause an undue hardship. Modifying workplace policies, including leave policy, is a form of reasonable accommodation.