“The Spokane City Council voted [unanimously Feb. 27] against a settlement in which a Spokane police officer fired in 2009 after a DUI and hit and run, would have been rehired and received $275,000. … Councilmember Mike Fagan said during the City Council meeting, ‘I not only say no, but I say hell no.'” [KREM] Attorney Bob Dunn, representing former officer Brad Thoma, said “his client was fired after the city refused to accommodate Thoma following a doctor’s diagnosis of alcoholism. ‘Disability law clearly identifies that alcoholism is just that a disability. Washington follows the ADA.’ The case started in 2009 when Thoma hit another vehicle while driving drunk then fled the scene.” Dunn said he would file a $4 million suit on behalf of Thoma. [same]
Posts Tagged ‘disabled rights’
“James Bovard: The Wrong Way to Help the Disabled”
“A 7 percent hiring quota for government contractors is unfair and unwise.” [WSJ] My contribution on the subject is here (more).
More: David Harsanyi at Human Events (quoting my February piece).
“Reassignment as reasonable accommodation: mandatory or not?”
When employees request reassignment to other jobs within an organization as an accommodation to their disability, is the employer obliged to do so even though other more qualified employees are in contention those same jobs? Or is it enough to assure the disabled employee fair consideration in a competitive process? The federal circuit courts are split on the issue, which could tee things up for Supreme Court consideration at some point. [Jon Hyman]
$17,000 restaurant dumpster ramp
Hotel pools and the ADA: a 60-day deadline extension
Following a substantial outcry (see Mar. 14), the Department of Justice has announced a 60-day stay of its new regulations requiring costly lifts and other fixes at hotel pools. It will also consider a six-month extension to address what it insufferably describes as “misunderstandings regarding compliance with these ADA requirements.” Translation: “opponents were persuading the public that the mandate was unreasonable.” Hotel and insurance officials had confirmed that many operators were considering closing pools or smaller water features such as whirlpools, which must often be given their own separate permanent lift installations under the rules. [Barbara De Lollis, USA Today] On the notion that it doesn’t pay lawyers to sue over uncompliant hotel pools, see this 2007 coverage of what was even then a busy litigation docket in California and elsewhere.
ADA: Everyone out of the pool
Unless hotels have moved to install expensive and cumbersome wheelchair lifts, they face new fines and litigation exposure under new Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations taking effect today. I explain why many pools will close as a result — and trace some of the ideological background — in my new post at Cato at Liberty (& Adler, Alkon, Frank, Adam Freedman/Ricochet (“the regulators have truly gone off the deep end,”) George Leef/Locke).
More: Notwithstanding my comments about Congressional Republicans being unhelpful, Sen. DeMint has filed a bill that would prevent the regulations from taking effect on their March 15 date. [Daily Caller] And Prof. Bagenstos defends the regulations in a way that I much fear will mislead newcomers to the topic. He emphasizes, for example, that hotel payouts resulting from federally mandated damages to complainants are for the moment unlikely. But as we know, the incentive of (one-way) attorneys’ fees has all by itself been enough to fuel a sizable volume of ADA complaint-filing, while in states like California the availability of piggyback damages under enactments like the Unruh Act turn many nominally zero-damage federal cases into highly profitable extraction propositions. As for the limitation of exposure to what is “readily achievable,” the USA Today report illustrates how uncertainty over the meaning of that term can leave pool operators exposed to risky and high-cost litigation. In the real world, fixes that wipe out the economic viability of a given pool (or the facility of which it is a part) are indeed asserted by advocacy groups to be “readily achievable.” That makes it cold comfort that some facilities can stave off liability for the moment by pledging to install the equipment by some future date.
Disabled-hiring “goals” for federal contractors
I’ve got a new op-ed at the Daily Caller on one of Washington’s more ambitious schemes of arm-twisting private businesses for the presumed good of society, and a post at Cato at Liberty tying it in with the curious legal situation in which — even before quotas! — some employers feel obliged not to discriminate against school-bus-driver applicants who’ve recently been in rehab. The WSJ covers the story today too. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is here (& Disability Law, more, Bader).
Recent rehab history no bar to school-bus-driver employment
In Jefferson County, Colorado, police have filed misdemeanor charges against a substitute bus driver for allegedly heading into a crosswalk against the right of way, hitting three middle school students. After questions were raised about the school’s having hired the driver in October — “He was convicted on a DUI in 1992 and he was going through alcohol rehabilitation treatment as recently [as] 2009” — a spokesman for the school district cited the following: “It is illegal under state and federal disability laws to deny employment solely on the basis of a history of treatment for alcohol or substance abuse.” There is no indication in the article that alcohol was a factor in the bus accident. [KDVR via Brian Martinez]
Disabled rights roundup
- ADA mills continue to extract money from California small businesses with no legislative relief in sight [Auburn Journal, Andrew Ross/S.F. Chronicle, KABC (James Farkus Cohan), WTSP (Squeeze Inn owner speaks out), CJAC (Lungren proposal) and more, Chamber (San Francisco coffee shop’s woes, auto-plays video)] Profile of attorney Thomas Frankovich [California Lawyer];
- EEOC sues employer for turning away job applicant on methadone program [Jon Hyman]
- “Maryland high court: allergy is disability requiring accommodation” [PoL]
- “Suits could force L.A. to spend huge sums on sidewalk repair” [Los Angeles Times]
- Under gun from Department of Justice and SCOTUS Olmstead ruling, Virginia and other states agree to massive overhaul of services for developmentally disabled; not all families, though, are happy with the insistence on relocating residents of large facilities to smaller “community” settings [Richmond Times-Dispatch, McDonnell press release, Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, Staunton News-Leader]
- “New Case from W.D. Tex. Shows Effect of ADAAA on Back Injury Claims” [Disability Law]
- Lawyer leads effort to give disabled passengers wider rights to sue airlines [Toledo Free Press]
Seats too small: the sequel
An overweight customer in Rockland County, N.Y. has dropped his Americans with Disabilities Act suit against White Castle after a Nanuet, N.Y. outpost of the hamburger chain put in new free-standing chairs that could accommodate him [NY Post, December via Lowering the Bar, earlier]