All employers are subject to disability discrimination laws, even government agencies.
Ironically, the government agency that is responsible for protecting workers from discrimination, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, can itself be sued for discrimination by its own employees. Even Administrative Law Judges can file claims agianst the government agency that employs them if that agency is discriminating against them based on disability, race, and other protected classes.
That is exactly what happened when a former employee of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit against them alleging that they discriminated against her because of her disability.
The
Huffington Post reports in its Oct. 29, 2012 Business section that the former employee, Mary Bullock, was no less than an Administrative Law Judge for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Mary Bullock suffers from Multiple Sclerosis and Systemic Lupus. A hearing was held and the Administrative Law Judge who was hearing found that Mary Bullock had been retaliated against for filing her discrimination complaint (although the ALJ also found that Bullock could not perform the essential functions of her job even with an accommodation.)
The ALJ awarded Bullock $25,000 in nonpecuniary damages, $108,680 in attorney's fees, and $7,823.24 in costs and both Bullock and the EEOC appealed the decision internally, but Bullock withdrew her appeal to file a civil lawsuit. The suit is currently with the District Court. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/31/mary-bullock-lawsuit-eeoc_n_1725610.html
An alarming close to 70% of disabled workers are unemployed
as reported by the Huffington Post. As of June 2012, only 32 percent of working-age Americans with disabilities were part of the labor force. That is a higher percentage of workers with disabilities who are not part of the labor force than was the percentage before the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Cancer discrimination, Multiple Sclerosis discrimination, Cerebral Palsy discrimination, Epilepsy discrimination and other types of disability discrimination in employment can occur in all types of jobs, both in white collar employment and in blue collar employment.
Contact Hope A. Lang, Attorney at Law, today for a free consultation.