I've written here and here about the lawsuit filed by the AARP against the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, seeking to invalidate the EEOC regulations relating to wellness programs and the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.

On Wednesday, the EEOC filed a motion asking the court to throw out the lawsuit. The EEOC argues ...

A federal judge in the District of Columbia has denied the AARP's request for a preliminary injunction against the wellness rules issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last May. As a result, the EEOC rules -- which establish when participation in an employer-sponsored wellness program is "voluntary" within the meaning of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the ...

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is only the latest in a string of federal agencies who've been sued recently in an effort to stop their regulations from taking effect.

We have the two lawsuits against the U.S. Department of Labor challenging the overtime rule that is scheduled to take effect on December 1 (argument in those cases will be heard November 16), the lawsuit that ...

I'm a week late with this follow-up. (Sorry.)

Two weeks ago, I posted about an employee (fictionally named "Zoey") who had a peanut allergy. After she asked a peanut-butter-loving co-worker ("Addison") to be considerate, Zoey found a big glob of peanut butter smeared under her desk, which caused her to get sick. Addison denied being responsible.

To recap from last time:

*I said I ...

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has issued a sample "wellness notice" that employers can give to employees before they are asked to provide medical information in connection with wellness-related health risk assessments or biometric screenings.

The notice provides information about employees' rights, and will be required in some form for all wellness plan years ...

No more pencils, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks . . . except for one little quiz on employment law issues that come up during the summer.

"Do this, don't do that, can't you read the rules . . ."*

Of course, the mega-topic this week was the U.S. Department of Labor's Final Rule on white-collar exemptions to the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Ellen Kearns, co-chair of our Wage and Hour Practice Group, wrote a great Client Bulletin on the Rule, taking a complex subject and explaining it in a pithy and ...

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled this week that obesity is not a "disability" within the meaning of the Americans with Disabilities Act -- even as amended in 2009 -- unless the condition was caused by some underlying physiological disorder.

In addition, if the individual develops a medical condition because of the obesity (such as diabetes or ...

If your employee isn't a professional driver but spends a lot of time on the road, how "essential" a job function is driving for ADA purposes? Is driving "essential" at all?

In what I consider to be a very significant result under the Americans with Disabilities Act, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently ruled that driving might not be an ADA ...

http://polldaddy.com/poll/9273052/

The best answer is "In all likelihood." A minor tear that can be repaired may not be a disability (it depends), but a severe injury, or one that is inoperable with residual limitations, probably is.

http://polldaddy.com/poll/9273130/

The best answer, again, is "Maybe yes, and maybe no." The big point here is that you can't count on being able ...