For employers, disability discrimination lawsuits often can be tricky to navigate. Today we’re providing some context around the legal standards involved with disability discrimination and retaliation lawsuits as well as some tips to make sure employers are as protected as possible.
Understanding Disability Discrimination Claims
To establish a disability discrimination claim under the New York State Human Rights Law (“NYSHRL”) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), the employee generally must prove four things:
(1) the employer is governed by the law in question;
(2) the employee was disabled within the meaning of the law;
(3) the employee was qualified to perform her job duties, with or without accommodation; and
(4) the employee suffered an adverse employment action as a result of her disability.
Remember that a so-called adverse action is an employer’s doing something that harms an employee’s job, like firing, demoting, or cutting hours
Even if an employee has evidence to support all four of these elements, an employer always can defend itself by providing a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for taking the adverse action against the employee. If the employer can articulate a legitimate reason, then the employee has the right to argue that the employer’s reason is pretextual – or made up.
Practical Example of Disability Discrimination
There’s a recent federal appeals case called Russell v. Westchester Community College that provides useful information for employers.
As the backstory to the case, a community college professor’s contract wasn’t renewed. She was upset about this and claimed that the school discriminated against her due to a series of heart problems she experienced. The school countered her argument by showing that her behaviors had been bizarre, rude, and belligerent, and that was the reason for not renewing her contract. In fact, her behavior had been documented in a series of emails and a student’s report that the professor berated, humiliated, and cursed at her.
Since the professor didn’t have a good-enough answer to the school’s evidence, the appeals court affirmed summary judgment in the school’s favor and dismissed her disability discrimination and retaliation claims.
Summary judgment is a legal tool that lets a judge decide a case without a full trial if there are no major – or material – facts in dispute. If one side can’t show it has a strong enough case, the other side can ask the judge to make a decision even before trial.
Of course, if the judge finds that some facts still need to be sorted out, the case will go to trial. If not, though, the case can be resolved early and a trial avoided.
This might sound like something only lawyers deal with, but it’s actually useful for employers to understand. The more records and documentation an employer keeps regarding workplace issues, the easier it is for a judge to clearly see what happened. Good documentation can help end a case early or avoid one altogether.
Even when an employer documents its actions carefully; however, a court may still deny summary judgment. In Harper v. Charter Communications, a recent decision from the federal district court here in Buffalo – called the Western District of New York – a judge denied the employer’s motion to end the case early because the employee’s requested accommodation was considered reasonable under the circumstances.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) treats the failure to provide a reasonable accommodation as a potential adverse employment action. In this case, the employee had multiple medical conditions, including asthma, diabetes, microvascular disease, back pain, and congestive heart failure. She had worked remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic and asked to continue to work remotely when the company implemented a return-to-office policy. She argued that working from home allowed her to properly manage her ailments, but her employer denied her request to work from home.
While her employer wouldn’t let her work from home, it offered many accommodations. They included a flexible break schedule, a transfer to a closer office, a private room for medical treatments, a modified work schedule, medical leave, a workstation near the restroom, and ergonomic seating. However, the court found these measures insufficient because certain aspects of in-office work such as environmental changes, fluctuating temperatures, and physical stress triggered the employee’s symptoms. The court found that a reasonable jury may not view the employer’s suggested accommodations as allowing the employee to enjoy equal benefits and privileges of employment that similarly-situated, non-disabled employees enjoyed.
The court concluded that remote work would have allowed her to manage her health effectively and did not impose a significant burden on the employer. And so, said the court, a trial is necessary to sort it all out.
This case highlights the importance of carefully evaluating accommodation requests – engaging in the interactive process with forethought – and considering whether the proposed solution genuinely meets the employee’s needs without causing undue hardship.
Retaliation in the Workplace
Retaliation is when an employer fires, demotes, or retaliates in some way against an employee for making a report of discrimination or participating in an investigation. Anti-retaliation laws are designed ensure that employers permit employees to report alleged wrongdoing or ask for needed accommodations without being disciplined for good-faith reports, especially when it comes to discrimination.
Making a report of discrimination is a so-called protected activity, which employees are permitted to do under both New York and federal law. Asking for an accommodation due to a disability is a protected activity, too.
According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, retaliation often occurs when employers feel slighted in some way by the employee’s report or claim, so they end up lashing out by either reducing the employee’s hours or taking some other action that negatively affects the employee.
Under both the ADA and NYSHRL, there are four elements for a retaliation claim:
(1) the employee was engaged in a protected activity;
(2) the person retaliating about her knew that the employee was involved in a protected activity;
(3) an adverse action was taken against employee; and
(4) the protected activity caused the adverse action to happen.
Obviously, in order for the protected activity – the accommodation request, for example – to have prompted the adverse action, the complaint has to come first. This means the retaliation must occur later in time than the protected activity.
Going back to the facts of the Russell case, our community college professor with the heart condition had filed a disability accommodation request, which is a protected activity. But even if she had been able to prove all the elements of a retaliation claim, she wasn’t able to rebut the college’s legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for the non-renewal of her contract. As always, the employee has to prove that the adverse action – here, the contract’s non-renewal – would not have happened in the absence of the employer’s retaliatory motive. For Professor Russell, she simply didn’t have enough evidence to support a claim of retaliation.
According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), 51.6% of the total charges filed nationally in 2024 were retaliation claims. In general, retaliation claims continue to dominant the world of employment claims. Indeed, retaliation cases can be easier to prove than discrimination claims. Consequently, even when a discrimination claim fails, a retaliation claim might survive.
And yet some employers continue to lash out against those who complain or ask for accommodations.
So what should employers do?
Best Practices for Employers
One of the most effective ways an employer can protect itself is by clearly establishing and documenting a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for any employment decision that can possibly be perceived as an adverse employment action.
When the reason for making a decision is well-supported and there’s no other logical explanation for why an employer made the decision, courts are more likely to dismiss both discrimination and retaliation claims early in the process. If the employee can’t present evidence that the employer’s stated reason is a pretext for discrimination – that is, concocted – the court may dismiss the case without needing to evaluate whether the employee even met the core elements of her claim.
Having substantial proof of a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason is easier said than done. In many cases, the decision to terminate an employee is more complicated than how it was described in the Russell case, which makes it even more important to have everything documented.
With these types of situations, then, employers can’t be too safe. Employers should have a policy in place – and training on the policy – to ensure all supervisors and managers know the proper procedures when dealing with a discrimination complaint or request for accommodation.
It’s also very important for employers to know what type of activities are considered protected, so they can properly prepare. In most cases, a protected activity takes the form of a formal or informal complaint – or even a work-related request – to a supervisor or manager. As an employer, it’s important to not make the complaint public or isolate the employee due to the complaint.
The best thing to do as an employer is to avoid taking complaints, reports, and requests from employees personally. It can be human nature to instinctively become defensive, angry, or lash out. Staying calm, cool, and collected and making sure to document every step of the process is the best way to stay protected in the event of a discrimination or retaliation lawsuit.
If you have any questions regarding claims of discrimination or retaliation, don’t hesitate to contact our office at 716.839.9700 or at info@coppolalegal.com
