"No more of your flimsy excuses! Get back to work!"

Do dads have any rights in the workplace? You bet!

How much do you know about an employer’s reasonable accommodation obligations under the law(s)? Take this quiz and find out!

Question 1: Which of the following federal employment laws require reasonable 

accommodation, either by their terms or as courts have interpreted them over the years?

A. The Americans with Disabilities Act

B. The Family and Medical Leave Act

C. Title VII-religion

D. The Nursing Mothers Act

E. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act

F. All of the above

G. A, C, D, and E

ANSWER: G. The FMLA does not require reasonable accommodation, but all of these other laws do. And there is some overlap between the FMLA and pregnancy or disability accommodation because leave for pregnancy or disability can be a form of reasonable accommodation.

Last month, I had the pleasure of speaking to the Federal Bar Association about hot topics under the Americans with Disabilities Act with my blogging buddy Bill Goren, proprietor of the Understanding the ADA blog. If you haven’t visited Bill’s blog, you should — he covers all aspects of the ADA, including Titles II and III, as well as the employment provisions (Title I).

Here are four ADA (or ADA-related) areas that employers need to watch in the coming year:

This week, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that a “multimonth leave of absence is beyond the scope of a reasonable accommodation” under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

In doing so, the court rejected longstanding guidance from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that a long-term medical leave is a reasonable accommodation when the leave is (1) definite and time-limited (not open ended); (2) requested in advance; and (3) likely to enable the employee to perform the essential job functions on return. Noting that under the EEOC’s position “the length of leave does not matter,” the court characterized it as an “open-ended extension” of leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act.

Would you believe we have another ConstangyTV Close-Up on Workplace Law? We do! In our August show, host Leigh Tyson talks with Heather Owen of our Jacksonville Office (esteemed proprietor of FOCUS, our women's leadership blog) about coordinating reasonable accommodation obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act and leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act ...

I'm going to have to make this a regular series.

A few weeks ago, I posted about an "Ask Amy" column involving a bullying boss, which I thought had really poor employment law advice. (To her credit, Amy posted not one, but two, corrections not long afterward.)

Last week, Karla Miller of the "Work Advice" column in The Washington Post -- who is a bona fide "HR advice" columnist, and a very ...

Walter Olson of the great Overlawyered.com sent a challenge over Twitter earlier this week:

For those of you who don't know Mr. Olson, he's a libertarian.  :-)

I have to admit, I needed time to process this! I complain about these laws all the time, but would I really want to get rid of all protections for employees who want to organize, be paid a fair wage, avoid being thrown out on the street ...

A jury socked it to a Wisconsin employer last year in a Family and Medical Leave Act case, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently affirmed.

Well, I take that back. The Seventh Circuit didn't affirm completely -- no, it ordered the trial court to give the plaintiff more in attorneys' fees than she had already won.

Check it out:

Tracy Wink was a clerical employee for ...

This year is ending with quite a few changes in various federal workplace posters. To ensure that employers, especially federal contractors, have kept up with the required changes, here is a summary:

Federal 6-in-1 Poster 

The U.S. Department of Labor made changes to some of the posters included in what is commonly called the Federal 6-in-1 Poster. The changes ...