Darrell VanDeusen, Author at Kollman & Saucier P.A.

Seeking Workplace Culture Change Not an Accommodation Request

Darrell VanDeusen

01/04/2024

ADA, Employment Discrimination, Reasonable Accommodations/Undue Burden

I was told by someone smarter than me (my wife, who’s a long time ago fully recovered lawyer) that my last blog had a bit too much law in it. So, I am cutting back on the citations. This blog focuses on a Fourth Circuit decision issued this week that merges the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) with the political climate that emerged over the last ten years. Kelly v. Town of Abingdon, __ F.4th __, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 14 (4th Cir. Jan. 2,...

Darrell VanDeusen

01/02/2024

Employment Discrimination, Race Discrimination

“The Way it Is” by Bruce Hornsby and the Range (track 5 on their 1986 album of the same name) is one of my favorite songs in the “poignant” genre. If you don’t know the song, take a listen. Heck, take a listen again even if you do know it. “The Way it Is” is a song about compassion. The last verse goes: “Well, they passed a law in ‘64 To give those who ain’t got a little more But it only goes so far Because the law...

Darrell VanDeusen

11/21/2023

ADA, FMLA

The Pennsylvania based rock band Dr. Dog has a song on its 2012 album “Be the Void” titled How Long Must I Wait? It has a line in the second verse about the battle of Baltimore. Extra credit there because it’s geographically local. What got me thinking about it was an Eleventh Circuit oral argument held in a FMLA case last week. Magwood v. RaceTrac Petroleum, No. 22-12501 (11th Cir.) (arg. held 11/16/23). The plaintiff appealed the...

Darrell VanDeusen

10/12/2023

ADA, EEOC, Employment Discrimination, Fitness For Duty Evaluations

Nearly everyone recognizes the Grateful Dead song “Casey Jones.” It was first performed live by the Dead on June 20, 1969, at Fillmore East in New York (it’s track 8 on Workingman’s Dead). It tells the true story of John Luther “Casey” Jones, from Cayce, Kentucky. Casey was a railroad engineer who drove a fast train and who died in 1900 when he collided with another train. A few days after the accident, Jones’s friend Wallace...

Darrell VanDeusen

10/09/2023

ADA, Employment Discrimination

According to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM). And 2023 is the 33d anniversary of enactment of the ADA, which was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush on July 26, 1990. My blogs this week will focus on ADA issues. The choices are nearly limitless. Recall that, while the ADA was the first nationwide law to apply to private and public sector employers – like Title...

Darrell VanDeusen

08/28/2023

Employment Discrimination, Sex Discrimination

Since July 2, 1965, Title VII has made it illegal for an employer “to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his [or her] compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1). Nowhere does the law require that the discrimination be an...

Darrell VanDeusen

07/12/2023

Disability & Leave, Reasonable Accommodations/Undue Burden

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law by George W.H. Bush 33 years ago this month – the same year our first child was born. Like most youngsters, the early years of the ADA’s existence found it growing in fits and starts. It was sent to the principal’s office (the Supreme Court in this case), more than any other kid in the class. Most of those times it was seen by SCOTUS as being “too big for its britches” and...

Darrell VanDeusen

07/10/2023

Employment Discrimination, Public Sector Employment Law

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be.” The Mad Hatter, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865) When I explain the disparate treatment theory in employment discrimination cases, I make the point that the analysis must look at the way people of different protected...

Darrell VanDeusen

05/26/2023

Employment Discrimination, Race Discrimination, Wrongful Discharge

You may recall an event in Central Park in mid-2020 that involved a woman who called the police when she encountered a birdwatcher. The birdwatcher was Black. The woman was white. Video of the incident went viral. I’ll spare you the link, but it’s still available (isn’t everything) with a quick search of “Central Park Karen,” as the incident became known. Amy Cooper was walking with her dog off leash in the Bramble, which is...

Darrell VanDeusen

05/22/2023

Reasonable Accommodations/Undue Burden, Religious Discrimination

I (he/him) grew up in a small farm town in Western New York. I represent a number of institutions of higher education, as well as a number of faith-based non-profits. So, when an article was printed in last Friday’s New York Times that merged those things together? That’s like chocolate and peanut butter; it got my attention. This blog looks at reports of the recent firing of two employees at Houghton University. At this point it is...

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Seeking Workplace Culture Change Not an Accommodation Request

Is Reverse Discrimination Different?

“How Long Must I Wait?” . . . FMLA Style

Trouble Ahead, Trouble Behind: ADA Week continued

Its Disability Employment Awareness Month

Fifth Circuit: Discrimination More Than “Ultimate Employment Decisions”

How to Accommodate a Pain in the Butt

The (New) Story of the Mad Hatter

The Difference Between Race and Racism

Pronouns Present Problems? Please.

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Author: Darrell VanDeusen

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