The 2018 Edition Of Our Book Is Available Now!

The 2018 edition of the Federal Sector Equal Employment Opportunity Practice Guide, written by The Wick Law Office's Benjamin Wick and Holly Franson has shipped. This book provides practical legal advice, guidance, and strategies for employees, HR professionals, and attorneys. Order your copy here https://store.lexisnexis.com/categories/shop-products/coming-soon-174/federal-sector-equal-employment-opportunity-practice-guide-skuSKU02358

Employer Provided Leave under the ADA

The EEOC recently issued guidance on employer provided leave under the ADA. This is information that is useful for employers and employees. Our ADA training includes substantive guidance on various reasonable accommodation options, including leave as a reasonable accommodation. If you are interested in scheduling a training for your workplace, please contact us.

Upcoming presentation at the Imagine Autism Conference!

The Wick Law Office's Reasonable Accommodation Training Group will be presenting at this year's 2016 Imagine Autism Conference …Remembering the Past – Looking for the Future in Albuquerque, New Mexico on April 8, 2016. Our presentation is titled Understanding, Requesting, and Implementing Reasonable Accommodations in the Workplace. We will focus on rights for individuals with autism under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Participants will learn the current state of the law, best practices for disclosing disabilities to employers, requesting reasonable accommodations in the workplace, implementing accommodations, and determining whether accommodations are effective. Participants will be encouraged to ask questions of the presenters, both of whom are legal practitioners in this field. More information on the conference can be found at http://cdd.unm.edu/autism/programs/imagine.html.

 

Thanks St. Louis!

Thanks to everyone in St. Louis who participated in last week's reasonable accommodation training. We enjoyed meeting all of you and are glad that you were able to attend. Please contact us if you have any follow up questions or additional training needs.

Seventh Circuit remands case for determination on whether termination was due to PTSD

The Seventh Circuit recently remanded a case in which a plaintiff alleged that she was terminated, in part, due to her Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the court found that emails discussing disciplining the plaintiff for PTSD related leave and a hospital stay, joking about her medical absence, and complaining that she was “becoming a pain with all this” were enough for the jury to find a discriminatory motive. A copy of the decision is available here:

http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca7/14-3618/14-3618-2015-10-06.html

Our New Reasonable Accommodation Article

Our latest article titled Recognizing Reasonable Accommodation Claims: An Overview of Reasonable Accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Arising in Workers’ Compensation and Family Medical Leave Act Claims has been published in this months Trial Talk magazine.

Upcoming Presentation in Albuquerque

The Wick Law Office's Reasonable Accommodation Training Group will be presenting at the 2015 Southwest Conference on Disability from 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM on Friday, October 9th, 2015 at the Albuquerque Convention Center. We hope to see you all there!

The Reasonable Accommodation Training Group Is Presenting At The Ohio State University

Benjamin E. Wick and Holly V. Franson of the Reasonable Accommodation Training Group will be presenting Understanding Reasonable Accommodations Under the ADAAA and Emerging Issues In the Law at the Ohio State University’s 15th Annual Multiple Perspectives on Access, Inclusion, and Disability Conference on April 13, 2015. The presentation provides an overview of the employer’s obligations under the ADAAA, with a particular focus on the issues that are most often a source of litigation: identifying and accommodating the essential functions of an employee’s position; and whether the employer can establish that accommodating an employee would pose an undue hardship.  The presentation will also discuss three emerging issues in the area of reasonable accommodation law: (1) obesity as a disability; (2) comfort animals as a reasonable accommodation; and (3) accommodating transgender employees. Conference information can be found at http://ada.osu.edu/conferences/2015Conf/2015conf.html

 

Kmart Settles Disability Discrimination Case With Individual With Kidney Disease

Kmart will pay more than $100,000 to settle a case arising under the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA") when it refused to provide an applicant for employment a reasonable accommodation of an alternative method of drug screening. The settlement includes a two-year consent decree with the EEOC in which Kmart will provide training on the equal employment opportunity laws enforced by the EEOC, on Kmart's ADA policy, and about providing reasonable accommodations in the workplace.

http://www1.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/1-27-15b.cfm