New York employers have an obligation to their employees with disabilities. Once you, as an employee, inform your employer that you have an injury or medical condition that requires a workplace accommodation -- or once your employer identifies your need for an accommodation (even if you did not make a formal request) the law says your employer must engage in a “good-faith interactive process” to find a reasonable accommodation for your condition. If your employer fails to do this, they may be in violation of the New York State Human Rights Law or the New York City Human Rights Law (or both), and you may be entitled to a recovery through legal action. If your employer has wrongfully denied you an accommodation or failed to engage in the interactive process, you should get in touch with an experienced New York disability discrimination lawyer to discuss your situation.
A discrimination case from the Kings County court offers insight into how the process should—or should not—work.
The employee, A.K., worked as a superintendent for a building in Brooklyn when he allegedly suffered an injury on the job. According to the superintendent’s lawsuit, his employer “mocked” him, refused to provide him with the necessary paperwork for filing a workers’ compensation claim, and forced him to continue working, which led to a second, more severe injury a few weeks later. After the second injury, A.K. was unable to perform his superintendent duties without a reasonable accommodation.
A few months later, the employer fired the superintendent.
The superintendent subsequently sued, alleging multiple claims of disability discrimination, including a failure to accommodate his disability. The employer asked the court to grant summary judgment in its favor, essentially arguing that no genuine dispute of material fact existed and that no amount of evidence would allow A.K. to win his case.
The court denied the employer’s request to throw out the superintendent’s disability discrimination and failure-to-accommodate claims. The judge explained that an employer, to win a summary judgment on a disability discrimination claim, under either the NYSHRL or the NYCHRL (which offers even greater protection to employees than the NYSHRL), normally must have undisputed proof that “the employer duly considered whether a requested accommodation would allow an employee to continue.”
Proof of ‘Good-Faith Interactions’
To do that, the employer necessarily must have undisputed evidence that it “engaged in good-faith interactions with the employee revealing at least some deliberation upon the viability of the employee’s request.” That process must include analyzing the needs of the employee with a disability and “the reasonableness of the accommodation requested.”
In the superintendent’s case, the evidence regarding the interactive process (or lack thereof) was far from undisputed. The employer argued that it was “supportive” of the superintendent after his injuries, but the superintendent’s court filings contended that the employer “mocked his injuries, suggested he visit a vet instead of a medical doctor, and spoke in a foreign language to exclude him” from discussions about his injuries. Given how strongly these issues were in dispute, the employer could not possibly be entitled to summary judgment.
The employer also relied on the alleged fact that the superintendent never made a formal request for an accommodation. The court explained that this was not the correct analytical standard. As the judge in the superintendent’s case pointed out, the standard under the law is that an employer has a duty to initiate an interactive process or to move forward to consider an accommodation as soon as the employer requests an accommodation or becomes aware of the employee’s need for one.
The Interactive Process and Accommodating a Disability
Once an employer becomes aware of the employee’s need or the employee makes a request, the employer bears the burden of initiating the interactive process. In a good-faith interactive process, the employer and the employee engage in a back-and-forth to arrive at an accommodation that meets the employee’s needs. Once the sides have identified an accommodation, the employer normally must provide the chosen accommodation. However, an exception exists in circumstances where the accommodation would impose an “undue burden” on the employer.
Disability discrimination cases can be complicated, fact-intensive matters that require in-depth knowledge and extensive experience with this area of the law. If you believe you experienced disability discrimination on the job, get in touch with the experienced New York disability discrimination attorneys at Phillips & Associates, PLLC. To find out more, contact us online or call (866) 229-9441 to set up a free and confidential consultation today.