Disability Discrimination in the Workplace
Treating an employee unfavorably based on a disability is illegal under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and also under New York laws. Employers must provide reasonable accommodation for a disabled employee unless it would create significant difficulty or expense for the employer.
Examples of accommodations include wheelchair accessibility or an interpreter for a deaf person or someone who can read for a blind person. Other examples are a reasonable amount of time off from work to recover from an injury or an illness, light duty, job restructuring, transfer or job reassignment, modified work schedule, working from home, breaks to administer medication, and provision of a job coach. Failure to provide reasonable accommodations is a form of disability discrimination.
Types of discrimination also include harassing an applicant or employee based on disability. The law protects disabled workers from supervisors, other workers and clients or customers harassing them based on their disability. As with other discrimination cases, under federal law you have 300 calendar days to file a disability claim with the EEOC and if filing with the State of NY, one year from the date of the last disability discrimination incident. Several disability discrimination cases the Law Office of Peter A. Romero has handled include:
