Dog-Gone It . . . Says the Eighth Circuit

Kollman & Saucier
Kollman & Saucier
06/13/2024
Earlier this week, the Eighth Circuit ruled a woman with Type I diabetes was not entitled to bring her service dog to work as an accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Samantha Howard, as a Type I diabetic, is unable to detect when her blood sugar is dangerously low. Howard began working as a pharmacist in a medical center ran by the City of Sedalia Missouri in 2019. Upon hire, Howard disclosed her Type I diabetes, and her...
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Second Circuit Revives Religious Discrimination Claim Of Prison Employee Forced To Remove Hijab

A recent decision from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a trial court’s dismissal of a religious discrimination claim brought by a female prison employee who was forced to remove a hijab.  The Plaintiff was a corrections officer who was a practicing Muslim, and who requested to wear a hijab at work.  This was in accordance with Plaintiff’s religious obligation to wear a hijab in the presence of men outside of her family.  The...
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Seeking Workplace Culture Change Not an Accommodation Request

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,...
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Repercussions of Supreme Court’s Groff Decision Start Appearing In Religious Exemption Cases

The impact of the Supreme Court’s June 2023 ruling in Groff v. DeJoy, which raised the standard for employers to accommodate religious exemptions, is beginning to be felt in lower courts.  Gone are the days when an employer can lawfully disregard a religious accommodation if it imposes more than a de minimis cost on the business.  With Groff, employers must now demonstrate that the burden of granting a religious accommodation for an employee...
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ADA May Require Reasonable Accommodations Related To Work Commutes

Federal Circuits are split over whether the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires employers to accommodate commuting or transportation difficulties outside the work environment.  In late July 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit decided a case applying the ADA to an employee who requested a schedule change because his cataracts made it difficult to commute safely at night.  The Seventh Circuit concluded the ADA might...
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How to Accommodate a Pain in the Butt

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...
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Groff v. DeJoy: Employers Have A Clarified Standard For Their Duty To Provide Reasonable Accommodations

On June 29, 2023 the United States Supreme Court issued its unanimous decision in Groff v. DeJoy, 600 U.S. ___ (2023).  This highly anticipated decision changes the individual assessment employers must use when evaluating a request for accommodation for religious reasons and whether the accommodation is reasonable or creates an undue hardship.  While this is one of several highly anticipated rulings from the high court this summer, it is not...
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Pronouns Present Problems? Please.

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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“Most Qualified” v. ADA Accommodation: Who Wins?

Anyone who has engaged in the ADA’s interactive process to provide a “qualified individual with a disability” (meaning that the individual has a “mental or physical impairment” that “substantially limits one or more major life activities”) with a “reasonable accommodation” that does not involve an “undue hardship” to enable them to perform the “essential functions of the job” knows just how challenging that task can be....
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Service Animals In The COVID-Era Workplace

There are endless articles and blog posts about COVID and the workplace, whether managing remote workers, implementing a safe return to work, vaccination mandates, testing procedures, masking, reasonable accommodation requests on all of these issues, and all of the related issues that have been on the forefront for the past nineteen (!!) months.  One topic, however, that has not received as much press, at least per my internet searches, is handling...
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