Disabilities
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Department of Labor Lists Considerations for Adult Child Care FMLA Leave Requests
The U.S. Department of Labor has issued an “administrator's interpretation” of factors an employer must consider when an employee requests leave to care for an adult child under the Family and Medical Leave Act.
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Dillard's to Pay $2 Million to Settle Class Action Disability Bias Lawsuit
The settlement resolves a 2008 lawsuit filed against the Little Rock, Arkansas-based retailer for allegedly using a longstanding national policy and practice of requiring all employees to disclose personal and confidential medical information to obtain sick leave, the EEOC said in a statement Dec.
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Court Reverses Ruling, Says UPS Worker Entitled to Trial on ADA Claim
The complex case of Teresa Watts v. United Parcel Service Inc. has gone to trial three times and been appealed to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati once before, according to the 6th Circuit's latest ruling.
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Worker's Inability to Speak English Appropriately Considered in Disability Ruling: Court
The case of Merivic Inc. and Zurich North America v. Enrique Gutierrez involved a workers' comp claimant who had a ninth-grade education and a 'limited working knowledge' of English despite having lived in the United States for 34 years, according to the opinion.
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Ministerial Exception Applied to Music Director with No Religious Training
According to the ruling, Philip Cannata, who became music director at St. John Neumann Catholic Church in Austin, Texas, in 1998, had no liturgical responsibilities because he “lacked the requisite education, training and experience.”
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EEOC Settles with Mining Firm Over ADA Violations
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Rocky Davis, who has profound hearing loss, had asked Birmingham, Alabama-based Jim Walter Resources, a unit of Walter Energy Inc., to accommodate him and assign him to another location, but the firm failed to honor his request.
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Ethnic Disparities Found in Compensation for Injured Construction Workers
The study of 1,039 cases does not explain the reason for the disparity, although the researchers said bias or prejudice are a possibility, as are differences in knowledge about how the compensation system works.
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Fast-Food Franchisee Settles ADA Charges Brought by EEOC
In the suit filed in April against Waco, Texas-based CTW L.L.C.
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Turkey Processing Company Must Pay $1.3 Million to Disabled Workers for 'Severely Substandard' Wages
On Sept. 18, Judge Charles R. Wolfe of federal district court for the southern district of Iowa in Davenport ordered Hill Country to pay $1.
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Employer Violated ADA by Requiring Employee's Psychological Evaluation: Court
According to the August 22 ruling in Emily Kroll v. White Lake Ambulance Authority, in 2008 the ambulance service became concerned about the behavior of Kroll, an emergency medical technician, after she became romantically involved with one of her co-workers.
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Wal-Mart Settles Employee's EEOC Disability Discrimination Lawsuit for $50,000
The EEOC said Wal-Mart fired Marcia Arney, a part-time clerk, from her position in its Carlsbad, New Mexico, store rather than trying to return her to her job after a medical leave related to her cerebral palsy.
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Former Wells Fargo Employee Says Company Fired Him Over Daughter's Cancer Costs
According to a lawsuit filed Aug.
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New Rules on Hiring Veterans, Disabled Unnecessary: Report
The OFCCP has proposed regulations intended to strengthen the requirements in hiring veterans who are protected under the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974.
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Lawyers Say Health Care Law Will Spur Employees to Sue Over Technical Issues
At least four federal agencies (the IRS, the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services and even the Department of Housing and Urban Development) are writing hundreds of pages of regulations that will apply as health care reform is implemented over the next six years.
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Study: Obesity Affects Duration of Workers' Compensation Benefits
The study's findings on the effect of obesity on indemnity duration are close to those reported in a 2007 Duke University Medical School study that found that obese workers file more claims, have higher medical costs, and miss more days due to job-related injuries than do their nonobese...
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Employee's Off-Duty Car-Crash Injuries Compensable: Court
The Kentucky Supreme Court said Adan Mandujano's car accident was compensable because he was performing the 'necessary and inevitable' act of returning from a trip that Gaines-Gentry and Eaton had requested him to take.
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Medical Marijuana Use Not Protected by ADA: Appeals Court
The lawsuit was brought by severely disabled plaintiffs who said conventional medications had not alleviated the pain caused by their impairments
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U.S. Workers Short on Long-Term Disability Coverage
Despite employers' cutting back on providing benefits, few employees are purchasing such policies on their own, says new study.
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Reassignment of Disabled Employees
Must an employer reasonably accommodate employees whose disability prevents them from doing their job by reassigning them to an equivalent or lower-level position? On March 7, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit ruled "no," and held that reassignments are not compulsory.
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Obese Workers' Body Mass Data Aids Treatment
Despite the fact that one in three U.S. adults is obese, claims adjusters often do not ask claimants about their height and weight during the initial intake process of a workers' comp claim, employers and consultants say.
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Obesity Problems Weigh on Workers' Comp
Not only are obese workers comp claimants likely to miss more work days than healthy-weight co-workers with similar injuries, obese workers are likely to have higher medical costs and are more likely to become permanently disabled, research has shown.
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Employer Guidance Urged for Pregnancy Discrimination Act
Testimony during the hearing showcased an employer's confusion over some of the act's rules.
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EEOC Issues Final Rule on Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act Records
GINA, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush in May 2008, protects job applicants, current and former employees, labor union members and apprentices and trainees from discrimination based on their genetic information.
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High Court Upholds Religious School 'Ministerial Exception' to ADA Bias Charge
In its decision in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School vs. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission et al., the nation's highest court said the ministerial exception bars only employment discrimination lawsuits.
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Top 5 Workplace Injury Causes Make Up 72 Percent of Direct Workers' Comp Costs: Analysis
Overexertion—or injuries caused by lifting, pushing, pulling, holding and carrying—costs businesses $12.5 billon in direct annual expenses and accounts for more than 25 percent of the national burden, according to Liberty Mutual's Workplace Safety Index.
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Recreational Boatmakers Excluded From Workers' Comp Act
Under new federal regulations, laborers who build, repair or dismantle any recreational water vessel will no longer be covered by the Longshore Act, so long as they are covered under a state's workers comp law.
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EEOC Sues Wal-Mart for Disability Discrimination
Despite a 10-year-old settlement involving disability discrimination with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the agency has filed another lawsuit charging Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
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Rule Would Require Federal Contractors to Hire More Disabled Workers
Contractors and subcontractors would have to reach 7 percent within each of their job groups rather than within its workforce as a whole.
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When Johnny or Janey Comes Marching Home
Veterans find it's a tough terrain in getting from the battlefield to their chosen field.
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EEOC to Hold Public Meeting on Guidance for Age Discrimination in Employment Act
According to background information issued by the EEOC last year, the proposed rule emphasizes the need 'for an individualized, case-by-case approach to determining whether an employment practice is based on reasonable factors other than age.'
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Wellness Programs Adapted for Workers' Comp
One consultant adds that employers also should optimize employee use of established wellness offerings, such as weight-loss or smoking-cessation programs that otherwise may be underutilized.
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Appeals Court Finds Retaliation Claim Against UPS Valid, but Judgment ‘Excessive'
The court said a $2 million judgment against the parcel service in the case was 'excessive,' because the company's actions only caused monetary harm to Keith Jones, a former UPS package car driver and plaintiff in Jones vs. United Parcel Service Inc.
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New Tool Gauges Cost Benefits When Hiring Disabled Workers
The tool focuses on three federal tax incentive programs: the Work Opportunity Credit, which can provide a maximum $2,400 tax credit; the Disabled Access Credit, which helps small businesses defray the cost of providing special equipment; and the Architectural Barrier Removal Tax Deduction, which...
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Health Reform May Outweigh Supreme Court's Light Employment Law Docket
The high court, which went back to work Oct. 3, has so far received petitions to review four separate health reform cases, and the Justice Department is expected to ask the court to overturn an August decision in which the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the law's individual mandate.
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Poor Economy Has Little Effect on Disability, Workers' Comp Benefits Programs
Researchers for the San Francisco-based IBI said the survey’s results, released this week, undermined what previously would have been considered reasonable assumptions of the recession’s effects on employers’ claims experience.
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Workplace Regulations Provide Relief to Pregnant Women and Breastfeeding Moms
The American with Disabilities Act Amendments took effect in January 2009, but the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines for the legislation were not issued until this past March.
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Verizon Settles $20 Million Disability Discrimination Lawsuit
The case is the largest disability discrimination settlement in a single lawsuit in Equal Employment Opportunity Commission history, according to the federal agency.
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Disabilities Protections Expanded
Because of the ADA Amendments Act's more expansive definition of a 'disability,' employers should be aware that workers with cancer or other diseases that are inactive or in remission may still be considered disabled, in which case reasonable accommodations must be considered.
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Disability Disclosure vs. Privacy
As workers with 'invisible disabilities' struggle over whether to reveal their conditions to their employers, some companies seek to promote a culture of understanding.
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Court OKs Award for Asbestos Exposure to Workers Spouse
Exxon Mobil Corp. argued that the woman’s claim was barred by the exclusive remedy provisions in New Jersey’s workers’ compensation law.
