Category: Disability & Leave

A Pennsylvania newspaper soundly defeated a partially deaf former employee’s claims of gender and disability discrimination in federal court.  Mengel v. Reading Eagle Co., No. 11-6151, (E.D. Pa. Mar. 28, 2013) Christine Mengel had worked at Reading Eagle Company since 1999 as a copy editor and page designer, receiving satisfactory performance evaluations between 2001 and 2008.  In 2007, Mengel became completely deaf in her left ear and developed...

The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) contains an “escalator principle” which requires that employers place service members returning to work into the position the service member would have had but for his or her service–the “escalator position.”  In other words, if an employee would have been a supervisor had he not been called to active duty, USERRA requires that the employee be placed into that...

A federal district court in Michigan has granted summary judgment to an employer that denied an employee’s request to work at home because of her irritable bowel syndrome. EEOC v. Ford Motor Co., 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 128200 (E.D. Mich. Sept. 10, 2012). This case was brought under the Americans with Disabilities Amendments Act (ADAAA), which significantly expanded the scope of protections for disabled. Even so, the decision shows that the law still...