Good news! The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently announced in its 2015 regulatory agenda that it will be issuing proposed regulations on the impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act on wellness programs. The proposed regs are expected in February.

To read about the continuing saga of the ADA/GINA and employer ...

What do you really know about the "interactive process" under the Americans with Disabilities Act? This is one area in which I am always getting questions, and I think it's the terminology that scares employers. "Interactive process" sounds so intimidating.

Instead of "interactive process," it should be called "sit-down."

When an individual needs a reasonable accommodation, the ...

DEAR READERS: Because of the Easter holiday, this will be my "Friday" blog post. I'll be back to my regular schedule next week.

UPDATE (7/3/14): The EEOC and Walgreens have settled their case for $180,000. Read all about it here. 

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is going to get a jury trial against Walgreens in a disability discrimination case that turns on (allegedly ...

A court says veganism might be a "religion" requiring accommodation, a school district gets nailed for failing to engage in the "interactive process" under the Americans with Disabilities Act, and yet another employer makes an avoidable and very expensive mistake with a severance package. Fun and games!

Is veganism a religion? Could be. A federal judge in Ohio has refused to dismiss a ...

If your job makes you want to kill yourself, are you a "direct threat" to your own safety?

In what has to be one of the weirdest ADA cases I've seen, a woman (let's call her "Gladys") was hired as a temp for a tech company in Seattle (let's call it "Initech"). A month later, Initech brought Gladys on as a regular employee. A month after that, Gladys told Initech that she suffered from chronic pain ...

A couple of interesting gems I got this week from other people (thanks, you guys!):

Pro hac vice statements defeat summary judgment! A federal judge in North Carolina denied summary judgment to a law firm who was sued by an associate for wrongful discharge based on race. Although the law firm's evidence showed that the associate was a poor performer, the judge found that statements made ...

Is it legal to bribe your employees to be healthy? Wouldn't that violate the Americans with Disabilities Act, or the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, or something? 

In other words, is it legal any more for an employer to offer incentives  -- like, money? -- to employees to participate in "voluntary" wellness programs?

The Bureau of National Affairs has obtained and released ...

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission held a public hearing this week on leave of absence as a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

This is a smokin' hot subject, particularly in light of the ADA Amendments Act and its regulations, which expand the ADA's coverage to a dramatically larger population, the "new," more activist EEOC under Chair ...

Bruce Carton of Legal Blog Watch (via Overlawyered.com) notes the passing of Nordstrom's employee "handbook," which consisted of a single index card with the admonition to "use good judgment in all situations." Meanwhile, at Minding the Workplace and Jottings By An Employer's Lawyer, the authors note that many, if not all, of our workplace problems -- particularly ...

In my previous post, I noted that litigation under the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act was starting to emerge from its dormant stage and promised to provide some best practices for employers to follow.

The most important thing to remember about the ADAAA is that, for the most part, all it does is change (albeit drastically) the definition of "disability." The ADAAA does ...