Disability Discrimination Lawyer in New York City

Learn More About Your Rights

Three laws can apply to a disability claim in New York, and they do not protect workers equally.

• The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) applies to employers with 15 or more employees and protects a qualified individual who can perform the essential functions of a job with or without a reasonable accommodation.
• The New York State Human Rights Law (NYSHRL) reaches further. Since February 2020, it covers every employer in the state regardless of size, defines disability more broadly than federal law, and expressly protects workers who request an accommodation.
• The New York City Human Rights Law (NYCHRL) is the most protective. It covers employers with four or more employees, defines disability the most broadly of the three, and puts much of the burden on the employer to show that you could not do the job or that an accommodation would be an undue hardship.

Across all three laws, employers may not treat applicants or employees adversely because of a disability. Qualified workers and applicants may also be entitled to reasonable accommodations depending on the circumstances.

More conditions qualify than most people expect. 

Under the ADA, you are protected if you have a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity, such as walking, seeing, hearing, concentrating, or the function of a major bodily system, if you have a record of one, or if your employer regards you as having one. New York State and City law go further, covering essentially any medically diagnosable physical, mental, or medical impairment without requiring proof that it substantially limits daily life.

Commonly covered conditions include: 

• Cancer, including cancer in remission
• Diabetes
• Heart conditions
• HIV and AIDS
• Epilepsy and other neurological conditions
• Back and spinal injuries
• Carpal tunnel syndrome
• Depression, anxiety, PTSD, and ADHD

Temporary and episodic conditions can also qualify, particularly under city law.

You are protected whether a disability is current, in your past, or only perceived, and you are protected if you are treated adversely because of your relationship to someone with a disability. Pregnancy-related complications can qualify, too, and these cases often overlap with pregnancy discrimination claims.

Disability discrimination can take many forms and may occur after an employer learns about a medical condition, accommodation request, treatment plan, or need for leave.

Common forms include:

• Refusing to hire or promote a qualified applicant or employee because of a disclosed or perceived disability.
• Firing or disciplining someone after they request time off for treatment, or after they return from medical leave.
• Denying a reasonable request for remote work, schedule changes, breaks, or modified duties without a real review.
• Stripping responsibilities, accounts, or advancement after a diagnosis or leave.
• Treating a worker as incapable based on assumptions rather than actual performance.
• Refusing to engage in a cooperative dialogue about possible accommodations.
• Harassment based on a physical, mental, or psychological condition.
• Acting against a worker because a family member has a disability.
• Retaliating against someone for requesting an accommodation or reporting discrimination.

Yes. Disability-related harassment can also create a hostile work environment.

Examples may include repeated offensive comments, mocking, stereotypes, nicknames, jokes about a medical condition, or ridicule directed at an employee's physical or mental-health condition.

Whether conduct creates a hostile work environment may depend on factors such as its frequency, severity, who participated, whether management knew about it, and how the employer responded.

The same laws that protect employees protect qualified job applicants. An employer breaks the law when it screens you out based on assumptions that a disability will cause absences, raise costs, or limit productivity, instead of judging whether you can perform the essential functions of the job with a reasonable accommodation.

The ADA also limits what an employer can ask. Before making a job offer, an employer generally cannot ask questions likely to reveal a disability or require a medical exam. 

Questions that cross the line include:

• Do you have a disability?
• What medical conditions do you have, or what medications do you take?
• Have you ever filed a workers' compensation claim?
• How many sick days did you use at your last job?
• Have you been treated for a mental-health condition?
• Will your condition require frequent medical appointments?

An employer may ask whether you can perform the job and how you would do it, with or without an accommodation. You can also request an accommodation to complete an application or interview fairly. After a conditional offer, an employer has more room to ask medical questions or require an exam, but only if it treats everyone entering the same job category the same way, and any decision to pull the offer has to be genuinely job-related.

Hiring bias is hard to spot because employers rarely admit it. The timing of questions, a change in tone after a disclosure, and inconsistencies in the employer's explanation often become the evidence.

A reasonable accommodation is a change to the application process, workplace, schedule, or the usual way a job is done that lets a qualified person with a disability do the work. 

Depending on the job, it can include:

• A modified or flexible schedule, or adjusted start and end times.
• Leave for treatment, recovery, or medical appointments.
• Remote or hybrid work.
• Additional or adjusted breaks.
• Accessible facilities, modified equipment, or assistive technology.
• Modified training materials or testing procedures.
• Reassignment to a vacant position or adjustment of non-essential duties.

Your employer does not have to grant your exact request if a different accommodation would work just as well, and it does not have to provide one that would cause an undue hardship based on cost, disruption, and its resources. A minor expense does not qualify. A flat refusal without any individualized review, though, is often a warning sign.

Cooperative Dialogue Requirement in New York City

New York City law requires employers to engage in a cooperative dialogue when they know an employee may need an accommodation. The process generally involves discussing the employee's needs, possible accommodations, alternatives, and any claimed hardship.

The employer must provide a written final decision regarding the accommodation. Ignoring a request, stalling indefinitely, or rejecting it without that process can itself be a violation of the city law, separate from the underlying discrimination.

Mental-health conditions, chronic illnesses, autoimmune and neurological conditions, cancer treatment, and conditions that flare up and subside can all affect your work without being visible to a supervisor.

New York City law provides broad protections, including for some temporary or short-term conditions. You may also be protected when an employer wrongly assumes you have a disability and makes decisions based on that belief.

Employees may hesitate to disclose medical conditions because of stigma or concerns about retaliation or career consequences. Delayed disclosure does not automatically weaken a disability discrimination claim.

Sometimes. This is called associational disability discrimination, and it can arise when an employer treats you differently because of the disability of a spouse, child, or someone else close to you. An employer might raise concerns about your attendance, commitment, or health-insurance costs, or move to discipline, pass over, or fire you after learning that a family member has a serious condition.

Federal and local protections can apply, though the rules for associational claims and the rules for accommodations are not the same. These cases benefit from a careful review of what the employer said and what changed afterward.

Your employer is the primary target of a claim, but under the New York State and New York City Human Rights Laws, an individual, such as a supervisor or manager who took part in the discrimination or aided and abetted it, can be named personally alongside the company. That can matter both for accountability and for the value of a case.

Many disability discrimination cases involve workplace power dynamics rather than a simple disagreement about accommodations. Supervisors, executives, business owners, physicians, law firm partners, managers, and other individuals with authority over schedules, compensation, assignments, promotions, evaluations, or continued employment often control decisions that directly affect an employee's career.

Employees may hesitate to disclose a medical condition or request accommodations because they fear retaliation, damage to their professional reputation, loss of advancement opportunities, or increased scrutiny. In many cases, disability discrimination claims arise not from the condition itself, but from how decision-makers react after learning about a diagnosis, treatment plan, accommodation request, or medical leave.

No. It is unlawful to retaliate against you for requesting an accommodation, reporting disability discrimination, or taking part in an investigation. New York State law now expressly protects workers who ask for a reasonable accommodation, and federal and city law protect this activity as well.

Retaliation can take the form of termination, demotion, reduced hours or responsibilities, sudden negative reviews, heightened scrutiny, exclusion, or pressure to resign. Timing is often the tell. A strong record followed by sudden criticism shortly after a disclosure or an accommodation request, with an explanation that does not fit your history, can point to retaliation.

Recovery depends on the facts and on which law applies, and New York and New York City law tend to offer more than federal law. 

Remedies can include:

• Back pay and lost benefits, plus front pay for future losses.
• Compensatory damages for emotional distress and other harm. The ADA caps these by employer size; New York State and City law do not.
• Punitive damages where the employer's conduct was egregious or reckless.
• Attorney's fees and costs.
• Reinstatement, accommodations, or other changes going forward.

Claims brought through the New York City Commission on Human Rights can also carry civil penalties against the employer.

You connect an adverse decision to your disability and undercut the employer's stated reason. These cases usually rest on the full employment record rather than one document. 

Helpful evidence includes:

• Emails, texts, and chat messages, and any comments made during hiring.
• Your accommodation requests and the employer's response.
• HR complaints, performance reviews, and disciplinary records from before and after the issue arose.
• Job descriptions, schedules, leave records, and offer or rejection letters.
• How comparable coworkers were treated.

Preserve records you lawfully have access to, and do not take confidential or proprietary materials unrelated to your claim. 

Many disability discrimination cases rely on workplace records and digital communications, including emails, texts, Teams or Slack messages, accommodation requests, HR records, performance reviews, and scheduling records. Often, no single document proves discrimination; instead, the evidence creates a timeline showing what changed after an employee disclosed a condition, requested an accommodation, or took protected leave.

Disability discrimination cases frequently involve discovery disputes, electronic evidence preservation, accommodation records, witness development, deposition testimony, motion practice, summary judgment proceedings, and trial preparation. The strongest cases are often built through careful evidence development rather than a single document or witness.

A few steps protect both you and any future claim:

• Put accommodation requests in writing and keep the employer's response.
• Keep dated notes of decisions, conversations, and witnesses, and save relevant messages on a personal account.
• Report the discrimination through your employer's process where it makes sense. An internal complaint can build a record, though it is not a legal prerequisite to getting advice or filing a claim, and HR works for the employer, not for you.
• Do not sign a severance agreement or release without having it reviewed first.
• Talk to an employment lawyer before resigning, since quitting can affect both your claim and your finances.

Deadlines turn on which law and forum you use, and a missed one can end a strong case.

• Under the NYSHRL, you generally have three years, both in court and, for conduct on or after February 15, 2024, for a complaint with the New York State Division of Human Rights.
• Under the NYCHRL, you have three years to sue in court. A complaint with the New York City Commission on Human Rights generally must be filed within one year, and you usually cannot pursue the same claim in both places.
• Federal ADA claims run through the EEOC, where you generally have 300 days to file a charge in New York.

A denied accommodation, a hiring decision, discipline, and a termination can each start their own clock, so it is worth speaking with an attorney as soon as possible. Acting sooner also preserves evidence and witness memory.

Speak with Our Disability Discrimination Attorneys in NYC

If a disability cost you a job, a promotion, or an accommodation you needed, you have rights under federal, state, and city law, and you do not have to enforce them alone. At Phillips & Associates, PLLC, we represent employees and job applicants only, focus entirely on employment law, and handle these cases on contingency. Consultations are free and confidential, and there is no fee unless we recover for you.

Call (866) 229-9441 to speak with a New York disability discrimination lawyer. We serve clients throughout NYC and New York State.