In a presidential proclamation on the 33rd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), President Biden stated that the landmark civil rights law “has had a profound impact,” but the United States has “much more to do,” signaling a continued emphasis by the administration on disability discrimination.
In the employment context, employers are required to consider whether an employee’s Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) request to bring a service animal or an emotional support animal (ESA) to work qualifies as a reasonable accommodation for that employee’s disability, and, if so, whether allowing the animal in the workplace would be an undue hardship. To properly handle such requests, the ADA requires employers to engage in an interactive process to determine whether and how to provide accommodations to disabled employees.
When one of our clients recently received nearly-identical demand letters from remote, unrelated, and unrepresented parties claiming website accessibility and threatening legal action for damages under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), we decided to look into it.
The Supreme Court of the United States agreed to hear a case concerning a self-appointed “tester’s” standing to bring claims alleging a hotel violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by failing to provide information on its website for guests with disabilities, even when the “tester” had no intention to stay at the hotel. Such claims brought by “testers” who comb websites and businesses’ bricks and mortar facilities for alleged ADA violations that they can turn into lawsuits have increased in recent years, causing challenges for businesses.
On September 21, 2022, the U.S. Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board (Access Board) issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) as the first step in a process toward establishing regulations that would create scoping and technical standards for a wide variety of touchscreen devices in commercial applications.
On August 1, 2022, the Court of Appeal of the State of California, in Martinez v. Cot’n Wash, Inc., resolved two outstanding issues in the website accessibility field in a way that limits the reach of the Unruh Civil Rights Act (Unruh Act) as part of a growing resistance in the judiciary to an onslaught of website accessibility claims.
The U.S. Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board (commonly known as the Access Board) announced that it intends to issue an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Architectural Barriers Act (ABA) in August 2022 that would create scoping and technical standards for self-service transaction devices.
More than a year after oral arguments in Calcano v. Swarovski North America Ltd., No. 20-1552, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of five nearly identical lawsuits brought by blind plaintiffs seeking to compel retail defendants to issue gift cards with braille on them.
With more employees returning to the office and physical workplaces as pandemic restrictions are eased and with an increasingly competitive labor market, it is especially important that employers be vigilant in responding to the mental health needs of their employees.
The Supreme Court of the United States, on April 28, 2022, held that emotional distress damages are not available for private discrimination claims under the federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Employers in Ontario and Manitoba have important compliance deadlines in May and June 2022.
In December 2013, The Accessibility for Manitobans Act (AMA) became law, with the goal of making meaningful strides in accessibility by 2023. The AMA seeks to remove barriers to accessibility in the lives of all Manitobans.
Almost twelve years after it first proposed to issue website accessibility regulations, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on March 18, 2022, published “Guidance on Web Accessibility and the ADA.”
The Court of Appeal of the State of California, Fourth Appellate District, recently handed a potentially significant website accessibility win to the business community under the Unruh Civil Rights Act (Unruh Act) when it upheld a jury verdict in Thurston v. Omni Hotels Mgmt. Corp. (Cal. Ct. App. Sept. 23, 2021), finding that the blind user of a hotel’s website reservation mechanism lacked a “bona fide intent” to make a hotel reservation.
For years, Scott Dinin was one of South Florida’s most prolific filers of Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) cases. His run ended two years ago, when, after obtaining default judgments against two gas stations on behalf of his client, Alexander Johnson, Dinin submitted a request for attorneys’ fees whose billing entries caught the attention of Judge Paul Huck of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
On April 7, 2021, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals rendered its long-awaited opinion in Gil v. Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc., reversing a trial court’s decision against Winn-Dixie, holding that websites are not places of public accommodation under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and that Winn-Dixie’s website does not violate 42 U.S.C. § 12182(b)(2)(A)(iii).
In Burnett v. Ocean Properties, Ltd., et al., the First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a jury verdict for the plaintiff in his failure to accommodate claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Maine Human Rights Act (MHRA). The court’s opinion provides a useful reference for the “single integrated employer” test for liability under the ADA. More significantly, it is an important reminder for employers regarding how seriously to evaluate accommodation requests, how promptly to respond to them, and how informed employees should be throughout the process. The First Circuit’s ruling shows that the consequences of failing to adequately respond to accommodation requests could lead to a finding that the employer acted with reckless indifference and is liable for punitive damages.
Over 1,500 COVID-19–related employment lawsuits were filed in the United States in 2020. Ogletree Deakins’ Interactive COVID-19 Litigation Tracker highlights the industries impacted, locations, and types of claims in these matters.
A Pennsylvania district court delivered good news for retailers struggling to balance enforcement of their face mask policies against the rights of customers who assert that their disabilities (or other factors) excuse them from wearing masks.
