For the past year, employees have been undergoing medical screenings and answering questions about their personal health to gain access to their physical workplaces. Employers can lawfully request their health status or require them to take leave from work if they appear to have symptoms of COVID-19. Despite laws protecting…
Articles Posted in Reasonable Accommodation
Airline Responsibility to Accommodate Passengers with Disabilities Beyond the Aisle
As domestic travel numbers rise and airports are once again filled with travelers, airlines continue to struggle to comply with accommodations for travelers with disabilities. Most recently, a viral social media video by Bri Scalesse, who is wheelchair-bound, shows her horror and distraught emotion when informed that Delta Airlines severely…
New Jersey Grapples with the Appropriate Use of Sheltered Workshops for Disabled Workers
Statistics show people with disabilities in the United States are twice as likely to be unemployed than those without a disability. The issue has been exacerbated during the coronavirus pandemic, which has caused joblessness to rise and an increase of workplace disability discrimination. But underlying the conversation about getting people with disabilities back to…
Teacher Requests for Leave Are Forcing Some Schools to All-Remote Learning
As schools scramble to figure out how best to reopen in a couple of weeks, with many opting for a fully remote start to the school year, teachers in some districts are faced with an all too familiar problem for working parents. How will they manage teaching in person and…
New Jersey Appellate Court Affirms Medical Leave Reasonable Accommodation Verdict
Under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (LAD), an employee is entitled to reasonable accommodations at his or her workplace when he or she has a disability and the accommodation allows him or her to carry out basic job functions. But what if the employee requires medical leave to seek…
Is it Unlawful to Terminate an Employee Because they have COVID-19?
For New Jersey employees, the short answer is yes. On March 20, 2020, Governor Murphy signed into law new legislation that makes it unlawful for an employer to take adverse employment actions, including termination, against any employee for requesting or taking time off from work because the employee has or…
NJ Court Finds Ocean Township Police Department’s Pregnancy Leave Policy Unlawful
The New Jersey Appellate Division has ruled that an employer’s pregnancy leave policy that requires pregnant employees to exhaust their accrued paid sick and vacation time to be in violation the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination. In finding for the employee in the reported decision of the the entitled Delanoy…
New Jersey Court Rules that ADP Can Be Liable for Discrimination as a Professional Employer Organization
An Essex County New Jersey Superior Court judge has issued an opinion that held that a Professional Employer Organization (also known as PEO) can be considered a co-employer for the purposes of the state’s Law Against Discrimination. In the case, Stephanie Perez sued not only her W-2 employer, the Dermatology…
New Jersey Disability Discrimination Law: Revisiting Tynan v. Vicinage 13
New Jersey law provides for strong protections for disabled employees who suffer discrimination at the workplace. What is widely considered as on the most powerful anti-discrimination laws in the country, the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination bars discrimination of individuals based on protected characteristics in the terms and conditions of employment. The…
New Jersey Law Protects Employee Who Failed Drug Test For Medical Marijuana
The New Jersey Appellate Division ruled that the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination protects New Jersey employees from being fired for failing a drug test in connection with medical marijuana use. For employees who use medical marijuana, this provides some extra protections with respect to their employment. With approximately 45,000…